Weight Loss

"Weight Loss" is the first/second episode of the fifth season of The Office and 73rd/74th episode overall. It was written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, and was directed by Paul Feig. It first aired on September 25, 2008, and was viewed by 9.2 million people.
==Synopsis==
The Scranton branch participates in a weight loss competition to see which branch can lose the most cumulative weight, with a prize of three extra vacation days (which later changes to five due to every branch performing poorly) for every employee in the winning branch. Although the branch is enthusiastic at first, the competition begins to take a huge toll on many of the employees, particularly Kelly, who stops eating and tries various kinds of diets, ultimately collapsing after one of the weigh-ins and later consuming a “tape worm” supplied by Creed. As a result, corporate sends a memo insisting that the staff need not resort to drastic measures to lose weight.
Pam begins her three-month stay in New York to attend classes in graphic design at the Pratt Institute, leaving Jim to adjust to her being away. Pam is temporarily replaced by Ronni, an older woman, and she is quickly replaced by Ryan, who was recently fired by Dunder Mifflin for fraud. Ryan, who is shown to be planning to rise again in the company, tries to make up with several workers he had treated badly. He apologizes to his former girlfriend Kelly, and asks her out, only to be rejected because she's dating Darryl, and is mocked by Jim when Ryan apologizes to him.
Michael successfully continues his casual bonding with Holly, with Jim noting that his success is due to Holly being "kind of a major dork". However, when Holly notices Michael talking in his office with a pregnant Jan, she asks Oscar to set her up with his yoga instructor. Michael learns of this and gets frustrated with Jim because he did not ask Holly out months earlier, which he wanted to but Jim told him not to. At one point, Angela chastises Kevin for improperly accounting for sales numbers. Holly, who thinks Kevin is mentally challenged, yells at Angela for treating Kevin so rudely, but when she refers to him as "mentally challenged," Kevin awkwardly reveals that he is not. Embarrassed, Holly apologizes and walks away.
Due to the poor results of the Scranton branch weigh ins, Dwight “randomly selects” Kevin, Phyllis and Stanley to get liposuction surgery. An insulted Phyllis is later approached by Dwight, who attempts to apologize by recruiting her for a two-person sale. Hours later, a sweaty and infuriated Phyllis returns to the office and reveals that there was no sale, and that Dwight left her in a warehouse five miles away without her purse or phone. Dwight tries to justify his actions by pointing out how many calories she burned on the walk home; in response, Phyllis calls corporate to report him.
Due to Dwight's actions, the next weigh in is skipped. Holly tries to hold a meeting involving positive body images, but is sabotaged by Michael in his Michael Klump persona (achieved by wearing a plus-size outfit over one of his sumo suits from "Beach Games"). Michael argues that Michael Klump is a “celebration of fat people,” as opposed to Oscar and Kevin's opinions that it is his “making fun of fat people character.” Michael forces an inauthentic apology out of Dwight, then reminds his subordinates that the weight loss contest was not just about weight loss, but positive body image and healthy lifestyles as a whole. He then requests that Kelly cease her unhealthy dieting habits and begin eating once again.
Phyllis takes over the Party Planning Committee after catching Angela cheating on Andy with Dwight. Andy has been making plans for his wedding with Angela, who irritatedly rejects all of his ideas. After Andy gives a heartfelt speech about not caring where they marry because he wants to be with her forever, Angela warms up to him a little. However, later in the episode Angela's disinterest resumes after Andy's persists in bringing his old a cappella group to be his best man, causing her and Dwight to resume their intimate affair.
Jim, having an unsatisfactory summer due to not being able to see Pam, asks her on a last minute lunch date at an interstate rest stop in between Scranton and New York City. At the rest stop, in a pouring rain, Jim finally proposes to Pam, and she happily accepts. Holly buys Counting Crows tickets as a surprise for the yoga instructor, but he never calls. Michael denigrates the yoga instructor for not calling her back, much to her apparent pleasure. He then offers to buy the tickets from her, only to tear them up in front of her and tells her to forget about being stood up.
The Scranton branch loses the competition to the Utica branch, much to the disappointment of the employees. Stanley, however, is pleased with the fact that he personally lost seven pounds and decides to take an extra five days off anyway. In the last scene, Toby is seen in a hospital in Costa Rica, having broken his neck due to a malfunctioning zip-line harness on the third day of his new life and has been subsequently hospitalized for five weeks.
==Deleted scenes==
*Dwight describes his perfect last meal - including how he would use the razorblade inside the soufflé to escape from prison.
*Oscar speaks with Toby about his time in Costa Rica.
*Oscar complains to Andy after turning the heat up.
*Kevin dumps the contents of his M&M's jar in the trash, which impresses Oscar - until he replaces them with Raisinets.
*Oscar says in a talking head that, while he is in very good shape, within the gay community, his physique is nowhere near as impressive.
*Jan criticizes Michael's foot-massaging.
*An alternate version of Jim's revelation that Michael claimed to have fathered Jan's baby, followed by Jim pulling out and reading aloud a letter from Jan, given to everyone in the office, in which she emphatically insists that Michael is not the baby's father, who is not anyone she or the office had ever met (though a deleted scene from "Baby Shower" would suggest that this might not be true).
*Ryan's mom drops him off at work.
*Ryan takes a call from David Wallace, who becomes surprised and outraged that Ryan is working for the company again. Over the phone, Wallace proceeds to tear into Ryan with such invective that he begins to cry, as the rest of the office looks on in shock (not unlike their reaction to Dwight's bended-knee mea culpa in "The Coup"). In a talking head interview, a still-tearful Ryan says that Wallace is now on his revenge list. Watch it.
*Michael takes the call from Wallace; in addition to his anger over Ryan's presence, the CFO mentions Phyllis's complaint about being abandoned by Dwight.
NBC made some deleted scenes available on its web site after the episode aired:
* Meredith explains her badly sunburnt face: "These guys took me on a fishing boat. I don't think I caught anything."
Additional deleted scenes were made available on Peacock:
* Dwight hands Michael a plate of food, and Michael thanks his "loyal sidekick". Holly offers to show Michael her sidekick, and she kicks him with the side of her foot. Michael laughs and offers to introduce her to "Mr. Titty Twister". Holly is taken aback, but Dwight interrupts and grabs and twists Michael's nipple. Watch it.
== David Wallace's conversation with Ryan ==
The following conversation can be heard from the other end of the phone call Ryan receives in a deleted scene.
David Wallace for Michael Scott. Ryan? How the f*k did you get this job? The Ryan Howard that we fired for fraud, for embezzling money out of our company? I can't believe you are working there.  You're a fraud who stole from us. I can't believe- who do you think you are? You gotta be kidding me. I can't believe you are working there, who the hell do you think you are? You are the most worthless piece of crap who has worked for me in my entire life, so get out of that Dunder Mifflin Scranton office because you are no longer allowed at this company.  Dunder Mifflin does not work this way, you are a pathetic human being. Get the hell out of that office. Who the hell do you think you are? Put Michael Scott on the phone, I don't give a- put Michael f*king Scott on the phone.
Ryan tearfully says he understands and begs David not to yell at him during the rant before patching David Wallace over to Michael as the camera pans out to show Jim awkwardly standing at the door. Ryan then tearfully says in a talking head that David Wallace made the list.
==Connections to previous episodes==
* Michael is wearing a sumo suit from "Beach Games" under his business suit. "I'm so glad I bought instead of rented."
* The blouse Pam wore to class (the one she attends by mistake) is the same blouse she wore in the first half of "Fun Run", another season-opening episode.
* Michael is rude to Ronni, just as he often makes offensive or suggestive remarks to Pam.
* After Michael asks how the staff can live forever, Jim replies, "Cryogenics. Beer me five." This refers to Andy's use of 'beer me' in "Product Recall" ("Beer me that disc," and Jim's "Lord beer me strength.")
* We can see the name plate that was given to Kelly in the episode "Christmas Party".
* Angela asks Andy if their first dance can be to her favorite song, "", a song which Angela previously sang karaoke to in "A Benihana Christmas" and Dwight hummed to in the pilot episode as he is setting up his desk.
* In the hospital, Toby watches the "hug it out, bitch" scene from , a scene which Michael re-creates in the episode "The Coup."
==Trivia==
* This episode does not have a cold open.
*The Scranton branch loses 32 pounds after their first week. It is common for there to be a large loss of body weight at the beginning of a weight loss regime, due to losing water weight.
*In this episode we learn that Holly Flax's given name is actually Hollis Flax, as revealed on the nameplate on her desk in the annex, which says, "Hollis 'Holly' P. Flax, Human Resources".  The nameplate is visible as the scene opens when Holly flips a paper down in the file she's looking at and looks over the wall of her cubicle to ask Kelly if she's okay when she hears her coughing.  
* The maple syrup/lemon juice/cayenne pepper and water "cleanse diet" Kelly is on in this episode is called "The Master Cleanse" or Lemonade Diet.
* According to Darryl's scale, Pam weighs 126 pounds, not 226 as Kevin calculates.
* Also according to Darryl's scale, by the end of the summer Stanley weighs 315 pounds.
* As of this episode, Amy Ryan is credited as a Special Guest Star.
* It is not clear why Pam brings her box of office desk decorations with her to New York (instead of just putting them in a storage room), or why she didn't change out of her business attire for the long drive. Furthermore, why did she drive at all? Since Pam is staying in the dormitories, she would have to find on-campus parking, which is extremely limited.
* Aspiring actor Stefan Kumor appeared as an extra in two scenes from this episode. His local newspaper covered the story. Hudson native makes first splash into Hollywood.
* The song playing during the birthday party is "" by .
* The reason Dwight and Andy are wearing garbage bags is to lose water weight. Wearing a garbage bag helps make a person sweat since the bag keeps them heated.
* While writing to Pam on the computer about meeting up at a rest stop, Jim says he thinks the rest stop is located at exit 17 of a highway, and when they arrive, the signs at the rest stop say it is in a town called Fairview. It could potentially be a stand-in for the Vince Lombardi Service Area, which sits north of exit 17 on I-95 and is located a town over from Fairview. However, Fairview, NJ sits across the Hudson River from New York City and is thus far closer to Pam, but she insists that she "had to drive way longer than" Jim. It cannot be located in Fairview, PA as this is located on Lake Erie at the western edge of the state and not between Scranton and New York. While Fairview, NY is potentially feasible, there is no exit 17 near it on any highway passing through.
*This episode opens the door for Toby's return in "Frame Toby". It is likely he moved back due to his hospital bills in Costa Rica causing temporary financial issues.
*The weight loss board lists the branches as Scranton, Yonkers, New York, Utica, Camden, Nashua, Buffalo, and Albany.
 
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==Amusing details==
* Michael does not say his signature "That's what she said" when Dwight presented an opportunity. Jim even asks Michael "really?", surprised. Michael previously stopped himself from saying so in "Goodbye, Toby" and changed his ringtone to a normal one so as to make a good impression on Holly.
*While discussing his weight loss, Stanley shows the camera a picture of himself when he was younger. It appears that he was a member of the .
* Meredith appears to have some issue with her face. This is especially present in the scenes in the warehouse on the scale. In a deleted scene, Meredith says that she went on a fishing boat with some guys and that she doesn't think she caught anything. This suggests that she did catch something that caused her face to appear the way it does.
* Holly, after engaging in an awkward encounter with Oscar, says, "Okay...I'm just gonna head on back to my work area over here," pointing to the bullpen, even though she doesn't work in the bullpen, she works in the annex.
*Andy confuses the popular phrase "a girl's dream fairytale wedding" by replacing "girl" with "boy".
* Dwight brings a boom box into the warehouse storage room for his trysts with Angela.
* Professor Monaghan misspelled "Professor" as "Proffessor" on the whiteboard.
* Angela tells the camera in a talking head interview her nighttime ritual. This was after she and Dwight came out of the warehouse. Presumably, the camera crew asked her, "How do you sleep at night?"
* Angela goes to bed at 8:30 PM.
*It seems from Angela's talking head interview she was aware that the film crew knew of her affair with Dwight. However, in one of the final episodes of the series "Promos," when she sees the scene of her and Dwight in the warehouse she seems shocked that the crew caught it on film. It is possible that Angela never thought the documentary would contain these scenes.
*When Jim waves to Pam as Michael carries the laptop to the supply shelf, there is a delay in Pam's response, a common result of webcam calls.
*Pam's user name on IM is "receptionitis15". In "Health Care", Jim and Pam make up fake diseases. (Jim's screen name is JIM9334.)
* As Darryl weighs the office staff and finds that they have lost no weight, he eats an ice cream sandwich.
*Dwight cuts off Holly so he can give the answer "Obesity-Caused illnesses" in the meeting. This does not work however, as Michael credits Holly anyway.
*When Jim leaves to see Pam in New York City, Michael gives him a condom from his wallet saying, "You don't want to end up with a surprise pregnancy like me." 
*Kevin is visibly the only one in the bullpen pleased when Ryan returns. He then proceeds to give Ryan a noogie. In "Dunder Mifflin Infinity", Ryan mentions his dislike of getting a noogie, especially since his haircut then cost him 200 dollars. Currently, however, he can only fume silently.
* When Holly informs Michael that they lost the contest, she knocks on the door with the opening phrase of . After Michael invites her in, she knocks the final two notes.
*When Michael says the office lost a ton of weight literally, Ryan looks up concerned. He then relaxes, likely realizing Michael didn't mean literally.
* The patient in the bed next to Toby just stares at the camera the entire time.
*During week 7, Michael, Holly, andy and Stanley are wearing striped clothes, which is believed to make you look slimmer.
==Goofs==
*In a continuity error, when Jim is eating lunch with Michael and Holly in the break room, Michael appears to not have his goatee anymore. However, the next time we see Michael (doing his Michael Clump impersonation), he still has his goatee. This scene should perhaps have been a deleted scene due to the fact that is it completely out of place and not really connected to anything else in the episode.
* In "Job Fair," Andy tells Mr. Maguire that he is from the Cornell Class of 1995. When talking to Angela he says he booked the Class of 1996. This was not the year he previously stated to Mr. Maguire, but in his recital of names to Angela he mentions Broccoli Rob. In "Here Comes Treble," it is clear that Andy and Broccoli Rob were in the same Here Comes Treble group, which makes whether he graduated Cornell in 1995 or 1996 unclear.
*When Dwight and Angela exit from their last "tryst", the mini boombox changes from being held in Dwight's right hand to his left hand.
*When Jim goes to visit Pam in Pratt, her dorm door reads "Pam Beesly" and below "Resident Advisor". In reality, Pam is unlikely to have been a resident advisor at Pratt. Resident advisors must have completed a 5-week training course and applied for the full-year position the previous spring. Pam is at Pratt for a three-month program and would not have met the criteria. Writer Gene Stupnitsky admitted that they did it simply because it was funny.Tan, Jennie. Gene Stupnitsky answers 'Weight Loss' questions, Office Tally blog, October 6, 2008
* Professor Monaghan apologizes for being late, but reveals the class name already written on the whiteboard. She must have arrived early to write the class name on the whiteboard ahead of time. (This is a goof in service of a joke: They needed a quick way for Pam to realize she's in the wrong class, but too late for her to do anything about it.)
==Behind the scenes==
* The writers had wanted to do a weight loss episode for a long time but couldn't find a way to fit it into the structure of the show, in which each episode covers one work week. Greg Daniels suggested having each act cover one week during the summer.
* The script originally contained a cold open, but it ended up being absorbed into the first act.
* This episode was almost titled "Summer".
* With the exception of Pam's video chat (discussed below), the scenes at the Pratt Institute were filmed at the University of Southern California.Hey, Look! Pam's Making Some Drawrings, Kristin Dos Santos, Watch with Kristin blog, August 7, 2008.
* The hospital scene was also filmed at the University of Southern California. The university asked if eight of their film students could intern for the day. There were interns in each department, and the crew said they did a great job.
* This episode was particularly difficult to produce because the scenes span eight weeks of story time: The crew had to juggle eight wardrobe changes and eight set dressings of the bullpen, and keep track of the weather, goatee progress, fruit fly status (and rotting fruit), Meredith's sunburnt face, and weight loss whiteboard.DVD commentary, "Weight Loss".
*The goatees worn by Michael, Ryan, and Dwight were all fake.
* The editors lost their usual flexibility in rearranging scenes due to the need to match wardrobe and make-up. Andy's talking head in which he talks about every boy's dream fairy tale wedding was originally filmed for a different point in the episode. The show used digital effects to change Andy's shirt and tie to match the point to which it was moved.
* The can of bug spray Dwight sprays on the food to make it inedible was really just aerosol water.
* The scale on which the office employees are weighed was custom made by Rice Lake Weighing systems, and the weight on the computer screen could be programmed to any desired value. They were huge fans of the show and did not ask for any credit or explicit product placement. The scale became part of the warehouse set.
* In the original script, Pam weighed 145 pounds. Jenna Fischer told them to put in her actual weight, which at the time was 126 pounds.
* The photo of young Stanley is an old prom photo of Leslie David Baker inserted into another photo of people he doesn't know.
* It took an hour to shoot the scene in which Dwight replaces the food in the vending machine with fruit, because resetting the vending machine for each take took a long time.
* Writer Mindy Kaling approached Rich Sommer at the SAG awards and told him that she was writing a character with him in mind. Sommer was already a big fan of the show and was thrilled. He still had to audition for the part, but he felt confident that he would get it. Sommer was given the impression that Alex would be similar to Karen Filippelli: The character would stick around for an entire season and serve as a road bump for Jim and Pam. 
* The professor of the class Pam attends by mistake is played by noted artist and author .
* To highlight that Pam is not the same as the other students, the show made a point to have all of Pam's classmates be significantly younger than her and have her dress a bit more formally.
* Rainn Wilson improvised Dwight kissing Angela after their first rendezvous.Tan, Jennie. Angela Kinsey visits the OfficeTally Chat Room, Office Tally blog, September 29, 2008 He also improvised slapping her butt before their second rendezvous, The actors kept breaking, and the director gave Angela Kinsey permission to have her character smile and enjoy the moment.
* Pam's video chat was filmed via live connection to a dorm room set constructed in the warehouse. An unexpected technical difficulty was that when Steve Carell picked up the laptop, the wireless interference caused the cameras to shut off.
* The cameraman's sigh when Jim prevents him from entering Pam's dorm room was improvised by camera operator Randall Einhorn.
* Producers James O. Kerry and Eric Colgan were the announcers for the baseball game Jim watches while waiting in the common room.
* TikTok user @noproblemgambler (Ian Araujo)'s painstaking research identified the baseball footage as from the June 2, 1992 game between the Louisville Redbirds and the Buffalo Bisons, in Buffalo. The scoreboard was digitally altered to make it look like a game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers.Nesbitt, Stephen J. "Jim, Pam and … Jeff Ballard? Meet the TikTok sleuth who IDs the game in the background." The Athletic. May 10, 2021.
* Rainn Wilson went all-out in the scene where Dwight kicks over the renegade birthday cake, splattering cake all over the small room. They could film only a few takes because it took so much effort to reset the room for each take.
* Holly's nameplate revealing her name to be "Hollis" was a joke created by the prop department.
* There was a lengthy discussion of what kind of Bluetooth headset Ryan would wear at reception. They chose from an array of over a dozen headsets.
* Michael's frustrated flapping after learning that the office has lost no weight was not in the script. This was Steve Carell's interpretation of Michael's frustration.
* The fruit flies in the vending machine were real, and it cost thousands of dollars to hire a fruit fly wrangler to manage them. The flies were from the Florida Fruit Fly Growers, bred as sterile for Florida citrus farms. The flies have a specific development cycle, and they had to be released on a specific day so that they would be at the right stage for filming. Many of them lived longer than expected, and the break room set had fruit flies for weeks.
* The rotting fruit also had to be timed out carefully. Property master Phil Shea had tables of fruit in various stages of decay so that the correct ones could be placed in the vending machine.
* Writer Gene Stupnitsky said that his favorite scene of the episode is the one where Phylils storms into the office after Dwight abandoned her.
* The show tried but was unable to use the actual sumo suit from "Beach Games". Instead they bought a special type of suit that goes under the business attire.
* Greg Daniels wanted the proposal to be in the season premiere because it would be completely unexpected. To throw people off, he also wanted it to be in a mundane location.
* The rest stop at which Jim proposes to Pam is a replica of a real rest stop: When Greg Daniels's family visited his in-laws in Connecticut, they always stopped at an ExxonMobil station along the Merritt Parkway to use the bathroom and get some snacks. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, ExxonMobil no longer permitted filming at their gas stations.Blake, Lindsay. The Best Buy Parking Lot Where Jim Proposed to Pam on The Office, I am not a stalker blog, June 19, 2020. Producer Randy Cordray kept trying to find a similar-looking location on the West Coast, but none of them were acceptable to Greg Daniels: West coast rest areas are more like mini-parks, but east coast rest areas are more like a gas station with fast food.
* After six weeks without success, Michael Gallenberg was flown to the Merritt Parkway rest stop to secretly take measurements and photos so that they could recreate the rest stop from scratch. They had nine days to scout, design, build, and shoot the scene. They could not film by a real highway because the highway patrol would have required the cars to slow down to 5 miles per hour in the rain zone.
* The rest stop set was constructed in the enormous parking lot of the Glendale Best Buy. (This same lot was used to build downtown Tokyo for the movie The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.) The mini-mart behind Jim and Pam is a façade, and the coolers and refrigerators are merely posters. The parking lot is so large because it used to be some kind of factory, and lead paint waste was buried on site, sealed, then paved over. Stunt drivers in cars and semi-trucks drove at highway speeds around a dumbbell-shaped track. The proposal was the single most expensive scene of the entire show, costing $250,000.
* The idea behind the scene was that the documentary crew followed Jim, but when Jim pulled over at the rest stop, the crew missed the exit, so hey had to pull over on the shoulder and shoot across four lanes of traffic through the rain.
* There was a huge debate over whether Jim and Pam were wearing their microphone packs during the proposal, with the final decision not made until the day the episode had to be delivered to NBC. The scene was cut twice, once with voice and once without. No audio was better from a realism point of view, but audio was better for fan service. The staff were split on which way to go. Greg asked everybody's opinion, even the security guards, accounting, the cleaning crew. One of the guards said he preferred the one with sound "Because I can hear it." Dean Holland convinced Greg to include the audio by telling a story of his own proposal. "I didn't say anything fancy, I didn't say anything special, it was probably the lamest proposal ever, but that's what my wife and I will always remember." Greg realized that people would want to hear it, even if it wasn't the most elegant and perfectly articulated proposal."
*Toby's story line was inspired by one of the show's writers who, ten years earlier, had saved up enough money to live modestly in Hawaii and spend his time surfing. They had a going-away party for him at work, but he was back just two weeks later. "He was lonely, nobody talked to him, he was robbed on the beach and that was it."Halterman, Jim. Interview: "The Office" Co-Stars Paul Lieberstein & Amy Ryan. The Futon Critic, September 12, 2008.
*The Spanish program Toby's watching in the hospital was voiced by John Krasinski.
==Cultural references==
* Pam's enthusiastic "What up, 2-1-2", refers to the used in the Manhattan area of New York City. It is one of the and carries prestige. However, the Pratt Institute is in Brooklyn, which uses the .
* Holly has read three times. It is a -winning book by which later became a .
*Andy parodies the song "" by .
*Andy suggests holding the wedding at , an enormous mansion in Rhode Island, originally owned by the . It is now owned by the and is open to the public, except for the third floor, which remains a private residence.
* is a script typeface. Professor Monaghan's joke about changing her alarm clock to Zapf Chancery doesn't really make sense. (It would have made more sense if she had changed it to Zapf Dingbats, which is an ornamental font where all of characters have been replaced with ornamental symbols.)
* Andy's proposed wedding venues include hot-air ballooning over (a wine-making region in central California), and (a theme park in Florida).
* Andy also reserved "the Wilkes-Barre Marriott Ballroom C". The "Courtyard by Marriott Wilkes-Barre Arena" hotel does host weddings, but they have only one meeting room, which is named "The Keystone Room". Angela claims it is haunted.
* Angela's talking head about her bedtime rituals is a literal answer to the unheard rhetorical question "How can you sleep at night?", an accusation of immoral behavior from the documentary filmmaker.
* Jim and Pam use , an instant messaging and video chat program.
* Pam's plans include watching , a cable television channel focusing on home improvement (formerly known as "Home and Garden Television"), and going to see musician perform at , a small nightclub in Manhattan known for its exclusivity, catering to a wealthy, celebrity clientele. Bungalow 8 closed in 2011.
* Michael tells everyone, "Let's suck in our guts" before weighing. "Sucking in one's gut" is pulling one's tummy tighter. This is typically done to look thinner in photos, but has no effect on weight.
* Angela demands a thousand-year-old church in the continental United States. This is an impossible requirement given that the region was not settled by Europeans until the 1600s.
*Pam is a at Pratt. A resident advisor is a student who is assigned to live in the dormitories with first-year students to help the new students adjust to college life, provide emotional support, and generally serve as an informal mentor. The position typically pays a modest stipend. Pam is an unusual choice for resident advisor because she is herself a new student.
* The music at Stanley's "fruit birthday" is "" by . It is about someone re-encountering an old flame. It is an unusual choice for a birthday party.
* is a Middle-Eastern pastry. It is very sweet and doesn't align with Stanley's newfound enthusiasm for healthy living.
* is a surgery which removes excess fat from the body.
*Ryan says that he's started volunteering, but Jim confirms that it is , a form of penal labor which supplements or substitutes for incarceration or monetary fines.
*Pam's lecturer was probably lecturing about the fungus problem in the .
==Quotes==
==Cast==
===Main cast===
*Steve Carell as Michael Scott
*Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute
*John Krasinski as Jim Halpert
*Jenna Fischer as Pam Beesly
*B.J. Novak as Ryan Howard
===Supporting cast===
*Melora Hardin as Jan Levinson
*Ed Helms as Andy Bernard
*Leslie David Baker as Stanley Hudson
*Brian Baumgartner as Kevin Malone
*Creed Bratton as Creed Bratton
*Kate Flannery as Meredith Palmer
*Mindy Kaling as Kelly Kapoor
*Angela Kinsey as Angela Martin
*Paul Lieberstein as Toby Flenderson
*Oscar Nunez as Oscar Martinez
*Craig Robinson as Darryl Philbin
*Phyllis Smith as Phyllis Vance
===Recurring cast===
*Amy Ryan as Holly Flax
*Rich Sommer as Alex
*Andy Buckley as David Wallace (deleted scene)
===Guest cast===
*Dale Raoul as Ronni
*Jim Petersmith as Bearded Professor
*Sandra Tsing Loh as Professor Monahan
*James O. Kerry and Eric Colgan as baseball announcers (uncredited)
==References==
Category:Season 5 episodes
Category:Episodes in multiple parts