The Office: Will Ferrell's Dunk Scene Left Him Injured And Quoting Monty Python
When Steve Carell left "The Office" near the end of Season 7, leaving the position of Dunder Mifflin Scranton branch manager vacant, creator Greg Daniels turned to a handful of new faces, including Deangelo Vickers (Will Ferrell). He stepped in to run the branch briefly until his tragic, untimely death after a warehouse slam-dunk accident.
Vickers tries to imitate Michael Jordan's famous free-throw line dunk from the 1988 NBA slam-dunk contest, but after badly mimicking Jordan's tongue-out approach to the basket, Vickers manages to jump high enough to pull off a far less impressive dunk, pulling the entire basket, backboard, and support down on his head. He then suffers a serious injury that causes his death.
Ferrell cut his leg while shooting the dunk sequence, but he shook it off and insisted on giving the shot another chance. In the midst of this, he told the line producer, Randy Cordray, he was able to continue while quoting Monty Python's Black Knight, saying "'tis but a scratch, only a flesh wound."
Ferrell's injury was minor compared to the one that killed his character
Vickers' death came in Season 7, Episode 24, "The Inner Circle," the last in Will Ferrell's four-episode arc. In the episode of the "Office Ladies" podcast recapping "The Inner Circle," creator Greg Daniels told hosts Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey that he was skeptical about how stable the harness and rope rig hoisting Ferrell was.
With the actor attached, it proved difficult to control. On the first attempt, stagehands failed to pull hard enough to make the shot look believable, but Daniels said that on the next try things got worse.
"They yank on this thing, and he's just pile-driven into the rim with this horrible crash," Daniels said. "It was such a disaster."
Fischer also spoke about how the set medics came to treat the cut Ferrell suffered on his knee, and line producer Randy Cordray was ready to scrap the shot altogether. Ferrell, however, pulled Cordray aside and insisted he was fine, using the aforementioned quote from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."
In the show, Vickers is taken away in an ambulance and returns to the office bandaged and delirious. He then meets his demise off-camera, leading to the introduction of James Spader as Robert California in the Season 7 finale, "Search Committee."