Leslie David Baker Thinks The Office Still Holds Up After All These Years
When "The Office" first premiered in 2005, it was surrounded by negative buzz. The ratings weren't good at first, and an NBC executive would often come by during the first season to tell the cast the show was getting canceled (via The New York Post). The remake of the British sitcom seemed doomed before it had even gotten started.
What helped "The Office" become one of NBC's biggest hits was Apple picking up the series for the iTunes Store. The comedy about a paper company branch and the bumbling, unintentionally offensive boss Michael Scott (Steve Carrell) became one of the major pop culture landmarks of the 2000s. Rolling Stone even named it one of the 100 greatest television shows in 2016.
The comedy does revolve partly around Michael's clueless behavior, including his racist and sexist quips. As such, cast member Mindy Kaling, who played Kelly Kapoor, told Good Morning America that the show couldn't get made today because most of the characters will likely get canceled. Much of those questionable actions were witnessed by the snarky salesman Stanley Hudson (Leslie David Baker), who often had a dry quip about the insanity at Dunder Mifflin during his talking-head segments. Here's what Baker had to say about the legacy of "The Office" years after the show aired its last episode.
The actor who played Stanley is mostly proud of the show
Stanley Hudson may not want to be there, but he's still one of the main fixtures of Dunder Mifflin throughout all nine seasons of "The Office." A grumpy, middle-aged employee who loves puzzles and pretzels, Stanley barely tolerates Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute's (Rainn Wilson) antics. He finally retires in the series finale but greets Phyllis (Phyllis Smith) fondly when they reunite.
Stanley's actor, Leslie David Baker, has noticed how the sitcom continues to find an audience. He told Entertainment Tonight Canada in 2020, "8, 9, 10-year-old kids are now coming up and telling me that they are fans of 'The Office' and we stopping [sic] filming in 2013 ... They weren't even born when the show was created."
The actor did criticize the racially offensive "Dwight Christmas" episode, commenting, "That's what happens when you get a lot of young writers who don't understand the historical aspects of doing blackface." Yet he still thinks "The Office" will keep on standing the test of time. "It'll become part of our culture that we will learn to watch and learn from," Baker concluded.