Office Max
Exec producer Greg Daniels on his show's growing success
The
Screen Actors Guild Awards are happening on Jan. 28, but for the cast, producers and writers of
The Office, it's just another night out in formalwear. The NBC sitcom has been racking up awards since it made its modest mid-season debut in 2005. But the show's ratings are stacking up, too. Among viewers ages 18 to 49 (the ones NBC sells to advertisers),
The Office is third among all half-hour comedies, trailing
Two and a Half Men and
The Simpsons. In some weeks, it's been No. 1. It's also got a big fan in the network's corporate headquarters. The Biz recently caught up with executive producer
Greg Daniels and talked about how the workplace comedy is climbing the ladder of success.
TVGuide.com: I heard that Jeff Immelt, chairman of NBC parent GE, became a supporter of the show when he watched some episodes on his plane. It probably reminded him of his own early career.
Greg Daniels: That's totally true. Early in the second season GE was doing this manager's meeting in Boca Raton. And we did a five-minute bit, which involved Immelt. He acted in it. I'm not sure how much the show was on his radar before that. When they pitched him to let us do the bit for the manager's meeting, he requested all the tapes and he watched it on the plane, and then we heard he really liked it. Kind of makes sense.
TVGuide.com: Do you find with the show that people either get The Office or they don't?
Daniels: The interesting thing is that so many young people — schoolkids — are into the show. At first I said, "Why is that? They don't have any experience in the workplace." Then I realized it's exactly like school. The teacher can be pompous, you're a trapped audience, and you have to listen to what this guy talks about, what he thinks is important. Your desk is next to somebody you might not like. You might have a flirtation with another girl at another desk. It struck me that it's a lot like being in a classroom.
TVGuide.com: At the recent TV-critics press tour, we heard a lot of producers reacting to what's said about their shows on the Web. There is a lot of online chatting about your show. Does it make producers crazy after a while?
Daniels: The people online are usually real purists. They often support the creator on the more creative decisions over the business-y decisions, I think. Anytime I get any piece of information, I pick and choose whether it supports what I want. The same with the executives — if an executive doesn't like a show, and they do focus-group testing, they're going to say, "These guys didn't like it." But the focus group is usually [made up of] people who aren't into the stuff. They are grabbed out of a mall. But the online community is the focus-group viewer you'd love to have. Everybody is super into the show. However, if you were going to pretend that's a focus group, [the network] would say, "This is not statistically rigorous. You're not selecting a representation of all different types of people. You're self-selecting people who just love the show and want to talk about it." But it's a great counterbalance.
TVGuide.com: What do the fans say about the relationship between Pam (Jenna Fischer) and Jim (John Krasinski)?
Daniels: I think right now all they want is for Pam and Jim to cuddle in every episode. But if they got that, they would be disappointed. They would be like, "Well, that's the end of that."
TVGuide.com: Do you think your success with the show is a lesson for the industry — that this is what can happen if you're patient and you nurture something that doesn't get off to a fast start?
Daniels: I think one of the big lessons they could learn if they wanted to is that when you're casting, you look for funny people, not good-looking people. Not to say my cast isn't nice-looking — but they're mostly character actors, and they're mostly funny people. The big problem I saw a lot on shows is in the casting; they would worry about getting good-looking people. If you look at 30 Rock, they're not all good-looking there — they've got that writers' room — but they've got really funny people. Funny people are not often the same as underwear models.
TVGuide.com: You've been pretty busy during awards season.
Daniels: I'm happy about them, and I love that we're getting nominated. We were nominated for a GLAAD Award for our "Gay Witch Hunt" episode. There are the SAG Awards. There are the Editors Guild Awards, the Writers Guild Awards, the Producers Guild Awards, NAACP Awards. We didn't get a People's Choice. If you look at the numbers, we don't have a massive [audience].
TVGuide.com: But in viewers 18 to 49, you're among the top-rated sitcoms on television. That's all the network cares about.
Daniels: We're the No. 1 18-to-49 show in households that earn $100,000-plus. They love that.
TVGuide.com: When you started this thing, you had a small episode order and low ratings. Did you imagine early on that it would become a hit?
Daniels: The only thing that made me think it might happen was that the British version started out at the bottom of the barrel [and then became a top-rated show]. All the people that I hired seemed to think that — the editors, the line producer, they were all saying, "his is going straight to the top." The writers and actors and I were saying, "Yeah, we're doing a funny show, but most things we like are on in late night."
TVGuide.com: What do you think distinguishes your show most from the British version of The Office?
Daniels: We have a number of characters who weren't in the British show. One of the things was that we kind of developed the romantic lives of the characters, which was something they just started to hint at in the Christmas special. I think that opened up Michael and Dwight a lot, to see those sides of them. You have more time, so you get past the first look at all the characters, which are often satiric and comedic, and you're still with them and often see the humanity of them. I actually think if the British show went on for many episodes, they would have been doing the same kind of stuff.
