Brian Baumgartner Reveals 'The Office' Joke He Was Mad at Editors for Cutting From Original Broadcast
Brian Baumgartner is looking back at his time on The Office!
The 53-year-old actor starred as Kevin Malone across all nine seasons of the NBC mockumentary comedy series.
During a recent interview, Brian recalled a joke in season five that his character made that editors cut from the original airing, but was later added back in for the show on streaming.
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“What I remember as being unique about the show from the beginning through the end, was we were able to give input —pitch stories, talk to the writers about what we wanted to see come over a certain episode or arc of episodes,” he shared with Entertainment Weekly. “There were certainly some ideas that I had that they incorporated, and some that they did not.”
“One time I got really mad at the editors. There was a joke — and now they have put it back in, so most people have seen it,” he continued. “I just thought it was pound-for-pound an amazing joke. It was a great joke, and they cut it.”
The joke was in the episode, “Baby Shower,” where Michael prepares for Jan to give birth to her first child, and the joke was made after she brings the baby into the office.
“Kevin begins asking her about where she got the sperm donated for the baby. She says some version of like, ‘Oh, you know, it’s a very exclusive place,’ and Kevin knowingly says, ‘The place behind the IHOP?’” Brian said.
The actor explained the joke came from “the look on [Melora Hardin's] face thinking that possibly the donated sperm came from Kevin, and what that would mean for Michael.”
“When it first aired on NBC, they came to me and they were like, ‘Sorry.’ I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’” he said, adding they told him, “‘We don’t really have a storyline about this, or we don’t want to confuse people to think that it might set something up with Kevin’s baby,’”
“I was like, ‘No, you’re overthinking this. This is just a great joke. Yeah, this is a great joke. That doesn’t have to go anywhere.’”
Now, the joke is back in the episode on streaming and Brian feels vindicated.
“I got really mad about that one, and I lost the argument, but now they have put it back in,” he said. “It’s interesting, you can’t watch that episode now and not see that moment happen. So it’s a little bit of vindication for me.’”"