It started in a paper merchant's in Slough
The Office began in Britain in 2001, created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, with Gervais playing David Brent, a manager at a paper company in Slough who desperately wants his staff to think he is funny. It was filmed like a documentary, with no laugh track and no music, and characters glancing awkwardly at the camera, and it ran for just two short series and two Christmas specials. The idea has since been remade in more than a dozen countries, from France and Germany to India and Chile, each with its own awkward boss.
In 2005 an American version began, set at the Scranton branch of the paper company DUNDER MIFFLIN, with Steve Carell as the manager, MICHAEL Scott. The first series was almost a scene-for-scene copy of the British one and was not a hit, but the writers then made Michael warmer and more likeable, and it grew into one of the most popular sitcoms of its time, running for nine series and 201 episodes. In the final series the viewers finally meet the camera crew who have supposedly been filming everyone for a documentary all along. Our sitcoms page covers the style it made popular.
A real town, a real paper company and a real Creed
SCRANTON is a real city in Pennsylvania, and its residents came to love the attention; local shops and landmarks shown in the opening titles became tourist stops, and the city held Office conventions. The show was filmed in California, though, in an office building in a suburb of Los Angeles. Its fake paper company became so famous that real Dunder Mifflin paper was later sold in shops.
CREED Bratton plays a mysterious, slightly alarming character called Creed Bratton, and he really is called that. The real Creed had been a guitarist in a 1960s rock band called the Grass Roots and started on the show as an extra, and the writers turned his odd, half-true stories about his past into running jokes.
Beets, pranks and a teapot
DWIGHT SCHRUTE, the fiercely serious assistant to the regional manager, as he insists, runs a beet farm with his cousin and often turns up to work smelling of BEETS. His rival across the desks, JIM HALPERT, spends years playing pranks on him, most famously sealing Dwight's stapler inside a jelly. PAM, the receptionist, and Jim's slow romance was the show's heart, and the teapot Jim gave her one Christmas, full of small private jokes, became one of its most loved moments.
Many of the smaller roles were filled by writers of the show. The actors who played KELLY and RYAN were both also writers, producers and directors on it, and the actor who played TOBY, the long-suffering man from human resources, was an executive producer. OSCAR, ANGELA and KEVIN in accounts, STANLEY, PHYLLIS and MEREDITH in sales, and ANDY, who took over as manager, fill the rest of the office. Our office jobs page covers what real office workers do all day, whether or not they sell PAPER.