Bringing ‘The Office’ home
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- April
- 3
Even two decades later, I can remember the disappointment I felt when I descended the concrete steps from the sidewalk on Beacon Hill and entered the Bull and Finch Pub.
From that sidewalk, the scene was so familiar, immortalized in the openings of countless episodes of Cheers , the biggest 80s sit-com this side of The Cosby Show. But down those steps and inside The Bull & Finch, things looked nothing like the spacious barroom where Cliff and Norm quaffed beers and wiled their days away with Sam, Woody and Frasier.
Few establishments, let alone entire cities, have ever embraced or been embraced by a popular TV series the way Cheers and Boston embraced one another. That’s changing, though.
Scranton, Pa., is certainly embracing the folks from The Office. And I’m not just talking about admitting Dunder-Mifflin Paper into the Scranton Chamber of Commerce or hanging company banners outside City Hall (Both true.).
According to The Times-Tribune, the Electric City has become a mecca for avid fans hoping to knock back a Crystal Club soda at Cooper’s Seafood House. City Hall dug up the old “Welcome to Scranton” sign John Kraskinski shot for the opening credits, and the Lackawanna County Visitors & Convention Bureau has even developed a daylong Office itinerary.
Now some ambitious Scrantonites have formed a convention steering committee with hopes of luring the Office faithful for a weekend of Dunder-mania sometime this fall. Apparently NBC likes the idea, so stay tuned.
Meanwhile, in the spirit of Office road trips, the folks at theofficechat.com are organizing an Office Fans Family Reunion, a day of barbecue, games and theme park rides. It’s not in Scranton, though, but rather at Stone Mountain Park in Georgia. The cost is $50 ($70 with park pass).
They need only 22 more people to sign up by May 31 for the Aug. 4 event to be a go. You’ve got to wish them luck, though from here in the lower Hudson Valley, a 135-mile drive to Scranton looks a lot more inviting than a 900-mile jaunt to Georgia.
Office Chat V
It’s been hard to sit on this one, but I wanted to save it for Thursday’s Office return. The estimable and eminently quotable Jennie “Tanster” Tan of OfficeTally.com is the subject of part five in my ongoing series showcasing the folks behind the fan sites, blogs and podcasts that fuel the Office’s online mania.
I’m not giving anything away ahead of time, but l will say that it turns out it never gets old having Jenna Fischer mention you by name.
CYA
It cost the producers of The Last Mimzy $40,000 to put a pair of digital boxers on Rainn Wilson after test audiences balked at the site of his accidentally overexposed hind quarters. The oversight could have cost the family flick its PG rating.
“When I bend over at the refrigerator you see leopard-print boxers under my pajamas,” Wilson says. “It’s probably the most expensive underwear in movie history.”
Helms’s broken heart
Ed Helms showed up at a hometown fundraiser for Atlanta’s Horizon Theatre over the weekend and recounted the heart surgery he endured at age 14 to repair a murmur. His high school crush at the time had sent him flowers, but when he got home he learned they were really from her mom.
“This is where irony comes in,� Helms told the room. “So much money and time and energy had gone into this intense effort to fix my heart. And when it was all said and done, it had never been more broken.�
Talk watch
BJ Novak will appear on Late Night with Conan O’Brien tomorrow night. Jenna Fischer is Jay Leno’s guest on the Tonight Show on Friday. Both episodes are new.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 at 4:55 pm by Brian Howard.
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