The Continuity Easter Egg In The Office That Even Hardcore Fans Miss
To call fans of The Office "dedicated" would be the understatement of the century. The seminal mockumentary sitcom has an avid following, intimately familiar with details across all of the show's nine seasons. It's hardly surprising when they catch onto things more casual watchers might miss, like Michael Scott's (Steve Carell) curious relationship with cycling. When the majority of the show takes place in one building, it begins to feel like home to viewers, so even the smallest details, changes, and Easter eggs rarely go unnoticed.
That doesn't mean there's nothing left to find, however. With more than 200 episodes of The Office at their disposal for streaming, fans will probably be digging up new artifacts for years to come. One such fan, Redditor u/alrod420, attests to "noticing things [they] didn't see before" even after watching The Office countless times. Indeed, their discovery — a continuity Easter egg — is something even the show's highest caliber fans very likely missed.
One company's trash is another company's treasure
Dunder Mifflin doesn't have anything in its Scranton, Pennsylvania office you wouldn't find in any other regional office — not counting whatever miscellaneous items Jim (John Krasinski) pranks Dwight (Rainn Wilson) with. It's got the office supply essentials like staplers, pens and pencils, and hole-punchers, as well as the heavier duty stuff like computers, printers, and a copy machine. Er, scratch that. Copy machines.
No, Dunder Mifflin doesn't cram two copy machines in its already cramped confines. The first one is destroyed when, during an all-too-real fire drill set up by Dwight to test the employees' "emergency preparedness," Jim and Andy (Ed Helms) use it as a battering ram to try and break open the locked door to escape. No one mourns the lost copier; it was old, and multiple Dunder Mifflin employees had been wishing for a new one anyway.
Several episodes later, Michael butts heads with Charles Miner (Idris Elba), the newly appointed VP of sales, and quits Dunder Mifflin to form his own business entity: the Michael Scott Paper Company. After setting up shop in a closet at Scranton Business Park with Pam (Jenna Fischer) and Ryan (B.J. Novak), right below the titular office, Michael does everything he can to prove himself a worthy competitor to Dunder Mifflin.
Story details aside, however, this is where the eagle-eyed u/alrod420's observation comes in: the Michael Scott Paper Company's copier is the very same one wrecked by Jim and Andy during the "fire drill." Stuffed into the corner, it's easy to dismiss, but the word "TRASH" written on it in black Sharpie signifies that it is indeed the same machine. Honestly, it looks no worse for wear, and the fact that the Michael Scott Paper Company gives Dunder Mifflin a run for its money means the copier performs admirably.
Something fishy at the Michael Scott Paper Company
Tangentially related to this seldom-spotted continuity Easter egg is another, comparatively more popular small detail fans have noticed within the walls of the Michael Scott Paper Company. Like the Scranton Branch of Dunder Mifflin, the interior of the MSPC, Inc. is speckled with interesting things (as evidenced by the tossed-out copy machine that's the focus of this piece). One standout item is the fish bowl that sits on Michael's desk. It has nice white pebbles and a plant for a finned friend to swim around in. Too bad the fish don't live for very long within the fish bowl.
As several Office fans have pointed out over the years, across three episodes of the show that feature the Michael Scott Paper Company, Michael has three different fish in his fish bowl on his desk. There's a bright orange goldfish, a taupe-brown fish, and a black fish. The joke here is, obviously, that Michael is just as bad at keeping a fish alive as he is at trying to establish his own super-successful paper company, but we can't help but feel a twinge of sadness thinking about Michael having to flush his office pets away so frequently. At least he has a pre-owned, pre-broken copy machine to console him? Yeah, that's a stretch.