The Best Pranks Jim Pulled On Dwight In The Office

The Office is a perfect amalgam of raucous comedy, tear-jerking drama, slapstick action, and oft-bumbling romance. It blends the serious and the light-hearted, the happy and the sad, all together into a nine-season ride that's captivated fans for well over a decade. But while storylines, settings, circumstances, and even characters change over the course of the show, there's one factor that remains steadily predictable from beginning to end — Jim Halpert's pranks.

From multiple gelatinous antics in the pilot to the "guten pranken" of the finale, Jim Halpert can always be counted on to deliver a good laugh at the expense of his beet-farming coworker, Dwight Schrute. The truth is, though, it's easy to get lost in the endless list of different pranks that Jim manages to pull off. With that in mind, we've collected our official list of the absolute best pranks that Jim ever pulled on Dwight, broken down in detail below for your reading pleasure.

While we had to start with the famous stapler-in-jello schtick, there's actually one fantastic prank that appears even earlier in The Office's pilot. Less than ten minutes into the episode, Dwight is shown aggressively clearing off his workspace by shoving Jim's admittedly slovenly desk overflow back with a ruler. Shortly afterward, Dwight returns to the desk clump to find a wall of pencils facing him. Looking incredibly perturbed, Mr. Schrute cites them as a safety violation, claiming he could even fall and pierce an organ, before he begins to forcefully remove them with his phone.

The best part about the pencil fence prank is that it originally wasn't even pencils — it was boxes. Early in the filming, the scene was shot with Jim taking a page out of the original British show, where his English alter ego, Tim Canterbury, stacked up boxes to cut off access to his clump-mate. You can even see the boxes that Jim originally stacked up before they reshot the scene, as they can be glimpsed in the background during a conference room meeting later in the episode.

Occasionally, Jim's best pranks factor directly into the primary plot. For example, take Dwight's salesman of the year acceptance speech. In season two's "Dwight's Speech," the beet farmer finds out that he's won Dunder Mifflin's top salesman of the year award. Michael, who's won the award twice in the past, informs his assistant that it will be the biggest speech of his life, leaving Mr. Schrute in a tizzy.

As Dwight casts about for ways to prepare for the big event, who should show up with some helpful advice but his coworker, ninth-place salesman of the year, Jim Halpert. Claiming that he majored in public speaking — which he didn't — Jim offers Dwight a barrage of helpful tips that he found by downloading famous speeches from history. This interesting approach leads Dwight to use large portions from the speeches of one of history's most infamous dictators, Mussolini, as a baseline for his oration. Rather than blowing up in his face, the rousing exhortation ultimately whips the hall of other salesmen into a frenzy, leaving Dwight unexpectedly euphoric from and Michael predictably thrown off by the whole ordeal.

In season three's "Phyllis' Wedding," we find Jim busy experimenting with the Pavlovian theory of pairing a stimulus with a conditioned response. How? Not by using a bell to make a dog salivate, that's for sure. He conducts his scientific research by causing Dwight to associate the sound of a computer shutting down with the reception of an Altoid. The comical scene shows Mr. Halpert shutting down his computer in a variety of different scenarios, always making sure to offer Dwight a mint after the machine beeps.

As the sequence draws to a close, Jim shuts off his computer, it beeps, and he does nothing. Without being asked, Dwight holds up his hand, expecting a mint, to which Jim asks with a smirk, "What are you doing?" Confused, Dwight replies that he doesn't know, adding that his mouth "tastes so bad all of a sudden." Along with being straight-up hilarious, the prank demonstrates Jim's tenacity when it comes to his work escapades. His willingness to steadily "condition" Dwight's response likely took weeks, if not months, and required a commitment that the paper salesman seldom applies to his work, let alone anything else in his life.

In season four, Dwight goes through a pretty bad rough patch. In spite of his condition, though, Jim still can't help but heckle the man whenever the opportunity arises. One such moment takes place in the episode "Launch Party" when Dwight obnoxiously challenges the new website to a paper-selling duel. In response, Jim and Pam try to convince Dwight that the new Dunder Mifflin website has become self-aware.

The couple begin IMing Dwight messages under the pseudonym "DunMiff/sys," beginning with the question, "Who am I?" From there, they launch into a conversation with the suspicious salesman, convincing him that the being he's actually talking to is a cognizant company website that believes it must destroy him "when it comes to selling paper." The ensuing battle drags on throughout the episode, only ending when Pam finally has a moment of empathy towards her depressed coworker, sending him the final message that, "You beat me. You are the superior being."

Sometimes the best part about Jim's pranks is their sheer unnecessary nature. This is on full display in the opener of the season five episode "Prince Family Paper." The scene opens on a quiet, productive office. As the camera pans to Dwight, the salesman notices an odd red wire coming out of the back of his computer. Following the crimson thread, Dwight finds himself on a harrowing adventure as he heads through the building and, eventually, right outside and up a telephone pole.

As he's shown trying to trace the source of the wire, we discover that Jim purchased 500 feet of red wire at a local flea market for $20, which is apparently a deal. What did he decide to do with his newfound treasure? Send Dwight on an utterly unnecessary treasure hunt that, as far as we can tell, leads him to a dead end. The results of all of Mr. Halpert's labor? A fun show and a big smile, which is clearly all he was looking for.

Mid-way through season eight, Jim and Dwight head down to the Sabre headquarters in the Florida panhandle where they plan on developing a store for the company. This sets things up for the opening scene of the episode "Tallahassee," which begins the adventure by showcasing Dwight's morning routine. After he gets himself ready each morning, the team leader spends most of his time waking up most of his sleepy coworkers.

When it comes to Jim, though, as the dad of two puts it, his parentally disturbed circadian rhythm means he's "up and at 'em at 4:15," with very little to do. This inspires the bored employee to set up one of the best pranks of them all — a murder scene in his bedroom. As Dwight enters with ice in hand and Erin in tow, he stops short to see a disheveled room and no sign of Jim anywhere. The television is fuzzy, the furniture has been knocked over, the sheets are tied in a rope and hung out the window, and fake blood can be seen on a towel on the bed. Additionally, an open suitcase with cash can be seen, and the words "It Was Dwight" and "Luwanda at The Alcohol Club" are scrawled on the wall. As the pair look on in horror, Jim's apparently lifeless body falls out of the closet, sending the onlookers into a screaming panic. End scene.

In season nine's "Andy's Ancestry," Jim and Pam set up a prank that's so complicated that it requires Jim to be physically absent in order to work. As the paper salesman does double duty in Philly with his new company, Athlead, the couple's actor friend, Steve, literally steps into his shoes to help with a prank. Steve is Asian, and the trio decide to set up a situation where he poses as an Asian version of the very white Mr. Halpert. Steve arrives on the Dunder Mifflin premises equipped with all of the knowledge and tools that it takes to be Jim. He's dressed in the same clothes, has the facial expressions down, knows his character's computer passwords, and is even aware of recent sales that Jim has been working on.

As Steve flawlessly pretends to be Jim, Dwight becomes increasingly flummoxed. At first he challenges the impostor by stating the obvious fact that "Jim's not Asian," to which Steve responds, "You seriously never noticed? Hey, hats off to you for not seeing race." When Pam walks up to the pair a moment later, she informs Steve that she got dinner reservations, and then she gives him a quick kiss. Even the picture on the desk has been replaced by a version with Pam, the kids, and Steve. All of this leaves Dwight stuttering stupidly as the genius scene cuts away.