The Best Cold Opens On The Office Ranked

The season eight episode "Get the Girl" begins with Pam getting an important phone call, after which she informs the office, "The balloon is falling." This leads the entire Dunder Mifflin crew to the warehouse, where they watch a colorful party balloon slowly fall towards the floor.

Gathered round the descending bauble, the group begins to reminisce about what life was like when the balloon had first wafted its way up into the rafters. Amongst other things, Oscar was still with Gil, Kevin apparently had silky, Rapunzel-like locks, and Darryl was still thinking about continuing his education. Oh, and Jim was still a paper salesman, too. As the nostalgic tone of the room shifts towards one of depression, the scene suddenly cuts to Darryl using the forklift to pop the resilient party piece while the onlookers repeatedly chant, "Kill the balloon."

The scene is already very funny. However, the fact that it comes eight seasons into the show makes it that much better, as most of the reminiscences refer to things that the audience has directly witnessed, making it a cleverly humorous trip down memory lane.

The cold open for the season five finale "Company Picnic" opens on a quiet, dimly lit office. It's not even 1 PM yet, but to the Dunder Mifflin employees, it's nearly quittin' time. See, as Jim's talking head explains, Michael Scott has just finished a family size chicken pot pie for lunch, and he's promptly fallen asleep at his desk.

Seizing the opportunity with both hands — clock pun intended — the employees band together to reset all of the clocks in the office to show that it's already 5 PM. Even Dwight gets in on the action, as he has a standing appointment with a horse doctor, which, yeah we'll leave that one alone. Dwight and Jim are shown fast-forwarding the various clocks around the office, and Pam even manages to tamper with her boss's timepiece. When Michael wakes up, he takes the ruse hook, line, and sinker, and the entire crew gets the afternoon off.

The brilliant scene stands all on its own, completely disconnected from the rest of the episode. It also shows a rare glimpse into how effective the Dunder Mifflinites can be when they put their mind to something. No wonder Andy ends up with a tattoo on his derriere when he challenges their collective abilities a few seasons later.

So many of The Office's cold opens revolve around Jim pulling pranks on Dwight. And one of the best takes place in the season three episode "Product Recall." Here, Jim arrives at work dressed as a carbon copy of his desk clump mate, Dwight. The attention to detail is remarkable, with everything from the mustard yellow shirt to the pager and the glasses. Even the part in his hair is perfectly in place.

As the scene progresses, Jim begins to mimic Dwight, who initially misses the purpose of his antagonist's new ensemble. When Dwight catches onto the mischief that's afoot, he accuses Jim of identity theft. Acting offended, Jim storms off, shouting "Michael" in very Dwight-like fashion, immediately echoed by a sincerely perturbed Mr. Schrute.

The scene is priceless, and it perfectly encapsulates the entire Jim-Dwight relationship — competition, harmless teasing, a bit of cruelty, and a caring professional friendship all rolled into a bundle of laughs, typically purchased at the expense of the poor, gullible beet farmer.

One of the greatest pranks that Jim ever pulls on Dwight takes place during the cold open for the season nine's "Andy's Ancestry" — and Jim isn't even there to see it take place. At this point in the show, Jim is spending a good chunk of time away in Philly, tending to his fledgling startup Athlead, and the Halperts use Jim's planned absence to pull one of the best pranks of all time. The couple recruits their Asian-American actor friend, Steve, to impersonate Jim at work and try to convince Dwight that Jim has always been Asian.

When Steve arrives at the office, he's dressed in Jim's clothes, has his hair done up just right, and has clearly spent time in front of the mirror mimicking Mr. Halpert's facial expressions. A befuddled Dwight immediately lays into the imposter, grilling him about intimate, work-related questions, but Steve is well-prepared with information. The picture on Jim's desk has also been replaced with one with Steve and the rest of the Halperts, and even Pam adds to the chaos by giving Steve/Jim a kiss. The clever scene ends unresolved as Dwight clearly does his level best to process the barrage of new information.

One of the best cold opens of all time introduces the episode "Michael's Birthday" toward the end of season two. Here, the Dunder Mifflin Scranton manager can be seen addressing several of his employees in the conference room. The subject of discussion? Buying into a business run by Michael's "friend," Phil – selling calling cards, which were already dated when the episode aired way back in 2006.

As Michael makes his pitch, it's slowly revealed that the manager has clearly been suckered into a pyramid scheme, with Phil and his Corvette sitting pretty at the top and Michael and some other poor sap left recruiting others for the base of the operation. As the group pushes back against the obvious hustle, it comes out that Michael has also fallen for the classic "send money to a deposed Nigerian prince" email scam. The priceless scene ends with Michael drawing a diagram of who's involved in the business and Jim quietly outlining the obvious pyramid shape that it creates, sending his enlightened boss out of the room to "make a call."

Every once in a while, a cold open is reserved for a crucial plot point, as is the case in the season three's "The Negotiation." The first two seasons of the show revolve around Jim's flirtatious crush on Pam. When season three begins, the salesman attempts to move on with his life by moving away and starting to date Karen. However, the tides of fate eventually suck Jim back into the cauldron of drama that swirls in Scranton.

By the time of this episode, Jim is settled in Scranton again, and Roy has found out that Halpert is a large part of why his wedding with Pam was called off. The cold open starts with Roy pacing outside of the office park late on a Friday evening. As Jim prepares to leave, Roy storms into the office, flashes a glance at Pam, and then goes after Jim. The showdown is cut short, though, when superhero Dwight steps in and blasts Roy with pepper spray, dropping the big fella to the ground in an instant.

While most cold opens focus on extracurricular events, the option to cut straight to the action here was definitely the right choice. The fact that it made the opening scene the place where we finally see Roy go for his revenge instantly makes it one of the best cold opens of them all.

Screensavers are magical things. In spite of their pointless existence, they still manage to trap everyone's attention, no matter how many times they've seen them before. This technical phenomenon was brought into the spotlight in one of The Office's best cold opens ever.

In the early moments of season four's "Launch Party," Michael can be seen holding a meeting in the conference room. Behind him, the television has a small, multicolored box slowly bouncing around the screen. Everyone seems intent on their boss, but in reality, they're gazing right past him, waiting for that box to finally, neatly hit the corner of the screen and then bounce back out.

As Michael proceeds to suggest ridiculous "improvements" to quarterly reports, he adjusts his conversations based on everyone's reactions to the bouncing box, thinking they're responding to him. When the box finally does bounce perfectly into the corner of the screen, everyone cheers and jubilantly leaves the conference room — leaving their boss with the impression that he should quit while he's ahead. The scene is pointless, ridiculous, and a perfect summation of everything that The Office is all about.

Dwight's fire drill is the perfect combination of comedy, tension, and flat-out insanity. Seriously, what other scene could truly hold a candle to Mr. Schrute's pyromania-inspired office training exercise?

The scene comes in season five, ushering in the famous two-part episode "Stress Relief." Here, Dwight convinces the office that they're trapped by an actual fire, complete with real smoke. The drill quickly gets out of hand — thanks to Dwight's firecrackers and blowtorch — as the employees of Dunder Mifflin careen through the office, trying to escape their perceived imminent demise. 

When the scene ends with Dwight revealing that it was a simulation, Stanley literally has a heart attack — even though Barack Obama is president at the time. Not only is the sequence epically entertaining on its own, but Mr. Hudson's health concerns tee up one of the best episodes of The Office to ever air, largely thanks to the momentum provided by its incredible cold open.