From Jenna Fischer’s TV Guide blog, dated February 9, 2006:
The Office Presents: “Valentine’s Day”
by Jenna Fischer, aka “Pam”I get a lot of letters about my hair. People want to know if it is naturally curly. They want to know how I wear it in real life. When I took it down briefly in the episode “The Secret,” people asked why Pam doesn’t wear it like that more often. Pam’s hair attracts a lot of attention.
You know it well. It’s curly in the back, straight in the front. Or as I like to call it, “the girl mullet.” I created Pam’s look when I went to my first audition for The Office [Thursdays at 9:30 pm/ET on NBC]. I channeled my experience as an awkward teenager in St. Louis trying to figure out how to tame my crazy mop of naturally curly hair. I didn’t know about big round brushes and blow-drying and antifrizz products, like I do today. And I figured that Pam didn’t know about that stuff, either. The best she could come up with was the scrunch-and-dry approach. She throws it in a clip because it’s easy. She doesn’t wear it down because it would attract too much attention, and Pam is shy.
But tonight’s episode, “Valentine’s Day,” marks a first for The Office: Pam changes her hair!
“Valentine’s Day” was written by the gifted Mike Schur, who wrote one of my favorite episodes so far this year, “Christmas.” He must be good with holiday themes, because this episode is awesome, too. It was directed by our very own executive producer, Greg Daniels.
In this episode, it’s Valentine’s Day and Michael has to go to the corporate office in New York City to do a presentation for Jan and the new company CFO. If he does poorly, it might mean the end of our Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin. Back at the office, Phyllis is overwhelmed with gifts from her boyfriend — Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration — while Pam waits patiently for a gift from Roy.
In celebration of Valentine’s Day, Pam wears a pink sparkly headband! There has been a season-long debate over whether or not we could ever change Pam’s hair. I worked with the amazing Office hairstylist Kim Ferry for weeks on different versions of Pam’s look. We tried ponytails, barrettes, and headbands…. We photographed each choice and consulted the Big Boss, Greg Daniels. In the end, he chose the headband. You’ll have to let me know what you think.
In other news, Dwight gets a Valentine’s Day gift and it is awesome. Everyone is going to want one. I’m very jealous that Rainn [Wilson] will get to keep this when the show is over. Kudos to our props department.
Finally, the poker update: So, we can’t gamble at work. But do you know where we can gamble? My house. That’s right — I’m hosting a game of cards tonight for some cast and crew. Here’s hoping that the house is lucky!
Until next week…