The Office Scene You Never Got To See Is Finally Available
NBC's "The Office" still maintains a large and loyal fanbase nearly 10 years after it concluded its network run. The workplace sitcom remains so popular that NBC's Peacock streaming service now offers extended superfan cuts of the show's episodes. These superfan editions of the show knit deleted scenes back into the episodes, expanding viewers' understanding of the program and its characters.
Among the material included in these superfan versions of the show is a deleted cold open for a Season 4 episode that's been coveted by "The Office" fans for years. This unreleased scene provides a bit of backstory to a memorable joke from a Season 5 episode, and makes Michael Scott's (Steve Carell) eventual reference to the object in question even funnier. Lost for years — per Jenna Fischer on her The Office Ladies Podcast, she couldn't remember if the scene had actually been filmed — it's finally available for "Office" fanatics to stream to their heart's content.
What happens in the deleted "The Office" scene that you can finally watch?
Michael's toilet tragedy turns to toilet humor
This deleted cold open is from "Job Fair," Episode 17 of Season 4 (per Mashable), and it introduces the Toilet Guard — AKA: the Toilet Buddy. Michael goes on to mention the Toilet Buddy in Season 5 Episode 19, "Golden Ticket," as an invention he's quite proud of (per TV Fanatic). Fans never got to see the device in action thanks to the deletion of the "Job Fair" cold open — until now.
In the missing scene, Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) jumps to Michael's defense when the latter can be heard shouting in dismay in the men's room. The twosome emerge with Dwight holding what appears to be a set of keys, a wallet, and other sundry items in a nest of paper towels at arm's length. Michael says he doesn't want to talk about what just happened. At Pam Beesley's (Fischer) prodding, however, Michael reveals that he accidentally knocked many of his possessions into the toilet — and threw his keys into the bowl in a fit of rage, to boot. This leads Michael to storm to the sanctity of his office, but he turns his "toilet tragedy" into a "toilet triumph" by inventing the Toilet Guard, a mesh net that prevents people from dropping objects into the toilet. Thus "The Office" history is made.
Fans can also watch this scene as part of the superfan edition of "Job Fair" on Peacock.