Justin Spitzer answers ‘Moroccan Christmas’ questions
Thursday, December 18th, 2008 | 43 comments
Q: What was Creed wearing over his shirt and tie? It looked like a disposable lab coat or something. | Kelly
Justin: Something Moroccan. A kaftan or djellaba or something.
Q: The set designers really went all out with the theme, how did you come up with the “Nights in Morocco” as well as long was the process of getting all the set decorations ready? | sorano916
Q: I loved the Moroccan theme! Phyllis in power is priceless. What other themes were possible options for their party when you were writing the episode? | Amanda
Justin: In ‘Goodbye, Toby,’ we had Phyllis plan an amazing party, but now we wanted to show that power has gone to her head. Thus the Moroccan theme (we talked about other options as well, but I won’t say what they were in case we ever decide to use them in the future).
Part of the reason we chose this one is that it seemed like the idea that would most aggravate Angela. We’ve spent four years watching Angela beat down Phyllis, and we wanted to do as much as possible in this episode to have you start actually feeling bad for Angela, so that you wanted her to finally stand up to Phyllis in the end.
Q: Who did Toby’s daughter’s voice on the phone? | Zac
Justin: Master impressionist and Man of a Thousand Voices Rich Little.
Q: How much time did it take Ed Helms to learn the sitar? And what song was he (trying) to play when Jim asked him to stop? | Laura
Q: Did a professional sitar player have to teach Ed Helms how to play? Or was his banjo experience easily transferred to this other (superior?) instrument? | Tiffany
Justin: Here’s yet another example of Ed Helms’ amazing talent. The sitar is a notoriously difficult instrument, so even though his playing of it didn’t have to be perfect, we wanted to make sure to give Ed enough time to learn the song. We gave him about a week (and no one to help him). But the song we gave him to learn was ‘Silent Night.’
Then, late the night before we shot that scene, we changed it to ‘Deck the Halls,’ and we couldn’t tell him about it until the next morning. When he was told about the change, he just shrugged, said no problem, spent about a minute-and-a-half figuring it out, and was ready to go.
I spent four years practicing oboe when I was a kid, and I still don’t think I could play a recognizable song.
That stuff he was playing in the annex was just random strumming.
Q: Was Ed singing “Ra da du da doo” instead of fa la la scripted, or was that improvised? Either way, totally hilarious! | floodedapartment
Justin: Improvised. I don’t think I could write that into a script even if I wanted to. How would you spell it? My keyboard doesn’t have a schwa key.
Q: Whose idea was the Princess Unicorn dolls? How did you go about making them? | Diapers Schrute
Justin: There was originally a whole different Dwight plot in the script (a holdover from last year’s Christmas episode), which we decided didn’t fit as well this year, so we had to scramble to find something else for him.
It was a group effort: Halsted Sullivan pitched the idea of having Dwight scalp the hot Christmas toy, Aaron Shure came up with Princess Unicorn (2nd option: Hank Grenade, a doll whose arms blow off when you throw him), Gene Stupnitsky thought of making Toby buy the black doll, and I took all the credit for the idea.
Then there was a lot of discussion about how to design them. Should she be just a princess with a horn or should she be more of a horned centaur, with the lower half of a horse? It got pretty contentious.
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Do you know the song which was played while the credits rolled on the Moroccan Christmas – Dec 12, 2008? It was a slow quiet song, maybe a female singing some.
Thank you!
In regard to the last answer… did you mean flame retardANT?
it must make the writers so happy to know people pay such CLOSE attention to the episodes. the office has the best/most obsessed fans! represent, dunderheads!
Fascinating as always! Thanks Justin (and tanster) Happy Holidays :)
I actually burst out laughing at Justin’s answer to the Pam and porn question. Thank you, Justin and tanster- these are always SO entertaining!
@ 36:
Jim already did that. In Conflict Resolution it is revealed that Jim set up a macro on Dwight’s computer so that whenever he typed ‘Dwight’ the word ‘diapers’ came up instead.
What do you guys think of the “Pam loves porn” comment?
Was he kidding, or….
I think knowing that it was a rubber pen makes that scene even funnier. And that’s funny “ha-ha”. Thanks so much Justin for answering mine and everyone else’s questions!
And, Tanster, for selecting my question, I think I quite simply love you. :D
Wow, I thought it’d be impossible for Ed Helms to get any more awesome. I shall call him the Big Talent.
And thanks Tanster for another awesome Q&A; your hard work is very greatly appreciated! Thanks to Justin Spitzer & the rest of TO for your awesomeness as well!
A really funny, simple prank that would be hilarious for Jim to do to Dwight is changing the Microsoft Word auto-correct setting. For instance, if Jim set the auto-correct for “Dwight K Schrute” to something like “The Dark Knight.” Every email he sends would be signed by the dark night or something like that. It’s funny to do with common words too like “the.”
I appreciated Justin’s willingness to answer the “dark tone” questions. I’m glad he realized people would either love or hate this episode. Sadly, I didn’t love it. But, I enjoyed Justin’s answers and thank him for his time!
Great fun! I enjoy the thought process behind the magic we see each week.
I have to chuckle at how some of you folks take all the answers to heart. It shows how excited you are about the show, it’s cute. I know he was kidding about JAM eloping but I hope, when they do marry, it’s a real wedding. We need a pay-off.
I agree with 28|SSE – Cheers to Tanster, in the immortal words of Toby Flenderson, “To Amsterdam!”.
Thanks for answering my question, Justin.
Wow, Pam and I have something in common!
The Office writers and Tanster are very good to us! Much thanks, and Happy Holidays to all.
#25 Caity- Thank you! I was just about to say the same thing. He was KIDDING about the porn and the elopement thing you guys! I can’t believe how many people took it and ran. Haha!
Thank you, Justin and tanster! These are just an awesome treat every time. :o)
Hey, thanks for taking the time to do this Q&A! =)
Awesome, as always. I would like to propose a toast in honor of Tanster…to Amsterdam!
It doesn’t matter how much I love an episode–it ALWAYS goes up a notch or two after reading the writer Q&As.
Big sloppy wet kisses to Justin for the answers.
And air-fives to tanster for bringing this site into existence.
Very cool – lots of details….thanks Justin & Tanster!
I love how seriously people are taking the porn and elopement jokes, haha. He was kidding!