Rainn Wilson, the actor behind the iconic Dwight Schrute, recently offered a candid take on his hit show, The Office. During an appearance on “The Last Laugh” podcast, Wilson reflected on the series’ brand of humor, acknowledging that some of it would not fly with today’s audiences.
The long-running sitcom, which aired from 2005 to 2013, has found a massive second life on streaming, but Wilson says a new season in 2025 would be a completely different show. He points to a particularly cringeworthy episode as a prime example of why.
The Clueless, Horrific Humor of The Office
Wilson specifically highlighted the “Benihana Christmas” episode from Season 3. In the episode, Michael Scott and Andy Bernard bring two Asian American waitresses back to the office Christmas party. As a joke, Michael draws on one of the women’s arms with a marker to tell them apart.
“That’s jaw-droppingly kind of horrific,” Wilson said, reflecting on the moment. He explained that the show’s comedy was often rooted in the characters’ cluelessness and insensitivity. The humor, while offensive at times, was meant to skewer a particular type of American sensibility. “It’s a show based around clueless, insensitive, racist, sexist people that kind of mirrors the United States in a lot of ways,” Wilson added.
He admits the show went “pretty far” at times but stands by the humor, arguing that it was “funny as hell” because it was always directed at the characters’ flaws, not the people they were offending. Still, he concludes that a modern-day reboot would be “very, very different.”
The Failed Spinoff That Could Have Made NBC “A Billion Dollars”
While a true revival of the original series seems unlikely, the Office universe did recently return with the Peacock spinoff The Paper. However, this isn’t the first time a spinoff was attempted. Wilson was set to star in a Dwight-centered series called The Farm, which even had a backdoor pilot during the final season of The Office. But the network passed.
Wilson says the network’s new leadership at the time wanted “big, bright, flashy, splashy” shows and weren’t interested in a niche comedy spinoff. He believes the decision was a mistake that cost them a lot of money. “Had they taken The Farm, they’d probably have another billion dollars in the bank,” Wilson said. He confidently stated that even if the show wasn’t as good as the original, fans would have watched it, making it a solid and lucrative project.
Wilson’s comments serve as a reminder that despite its cultural dominance now, The Office was not always a surefire hit. “The history of The Office in NBC is, they never really got the show,” he said. It wasn’t until the show became a streaming juggernaut that NBC truly realized its potential.
