Life In The Office

Well, my fearless prediction for “The Whistleblower” was incorrect; All through Season Six, The Office had a running gag going about the “Scranton Strangler.” I had a hunch that the elusive evil-doer was going to be undone in the season finale, and I even had the perpetrator identified! I was sure the culprit was Hidetoshi Hasagawa, the mysterious Japanese doctor with the “steady hands,” who got hired to work in the warehouse.  And I even had the plot twist figured out: As the northeastern Pennsylvania news crews swarmed on Dunder-Mifflin, to get the story on the exploding printers, the police would be surrounding the Scranton Business Park to take Hide into custody. I thought the set-up was perfect. The spectacular SWAT-team takedown in the warehouse would totally distract the news jackals, who would promptly forget about covering the suddenly tame story of defective technology. The arresting development of the “Scranton Strangler” caper would be a screaming front page headline in the Times-Tribune, knocking the printer fire story into a little blip at the bottom of the business section… Solving Sabre’s embarrassing predicament, as the press hounds sprinted after the sexier story. Win-win-win! Uh… except none of that happened. The Office writers just up and left the “Scranton Strangler” storyline dangling, like the proverbial participle. (which is a writing error that I am probably guilty of, but since I don’t even know what it is, I remain blissfully unaware.) Oh well, blissfully unaware, and on to “The Whistleblower.”

The show opens up with a plethora of hometown references. The office computer screens show Michael Scott as the top story on PAhomepage.com. It is the online home of local TV channel 28 WBRE, the Scranton NBC affiliate that apparently is scooping every other local news source on this important breaking story. You might think that ABC or CBS would have sniffed something out by now, but no. Only NBC, which is the home of The Office, is on top of this, oddly enough. Of course, Michael “publicity hound” Scott himself calls a radio station request line to blab about it… Froggy 101, which he naturally mis-identifies as Froggy 98.7. Then, the PA Homepage video of Michael is being outwatched by (gasp) a cutesy online report of a baby otter at the, uh… zoo. As alert LITO reader, and “all-things-Scranton” research assistant Dave points out, the local area Nay Aug Zoo closed to the public in 2009. It has had a checkered past, several times making the “top 10″ list of “worst zoos in the world.” (Seriously!) Lackawanna College now uses the site as an animal research center, so of course it is still possible that an adorable otter is splashing in the water there.

When Dwight barges in on Jo Bennett, and they oddly begin discussing his net worth, Jo is drinking from a coffee cup inscribed with the inspirational words “Building a better Scranton.” Sounds like a Chamber Of Commerce coffee mug deal-io. When Darryl is confessing that he may be the snitch, he laments the fact that the girl in the bar he was talking to was a copy editor for the “Trib.” That would be the newspaper the “Scranton Times-Tribune.” When I lived in the area, we were able to read morning and afternoon papers, the Times vs. the Tribune. The papers merged, and I suspect way more people refer to it now as the “Times.” But surely there are a few folks that call it the “Trib.” (There’s probably a “Shirley” joke in there somewhere; maybe one will come to me.)

Here’s my best super-sleuth work for the episode: When Toby is at his desk, disparaging Jo Bennett’s literary contributions to his novel, a foam-rubber bone is visible on the wall behind him. The writing on the bone says “Tobyhanna– Toby’s troops.” A quick little Google produced results. Toby’s troops is a savings promotion from the “Tobyhanna Army Depot Federal Credit Union,” and one of their logos is apparently… a bone. My dad worked for many years at the Tobyhanna army base, a major employer in the Scranton area. I think The Office writers missed a golden opportunity to be clever: they could have  named the Human Resources director “Toby Hanna.” It would have been such a cool “inside joke,” and to paraphrase Michael Scott, I think we all desire to be in on an “inside joke” someday.

This next nugget is weird, because it just seems lazy… or calculated. The show sends Michael off with Jo Bennett, for some odd reason, to sit on her private plane in a hangar. Ostensibly, they would be traveling to the Avoca International Airport, halfway between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, just off of I-81. But they are clearly shown entering “Castle & Cooke Aviation,” which has its main office in Van Nuys, California, right where the show is filmed. Castle & Cooke also has a branch up the road from me at Paine Field in Everett, Washington. But, they have no presence in Scranton, or anywhere on the east coast, as far as I can tell. So, this one really smacks of a paid product placement, especially given the fact that it was never explained why they headed for her plane in the first place. Is this scene that calculated? Or is it incalculable?

Finally, this nod to Scranton made me smile, just because it tosses a small town its 15 minutes of fame, like a foam rubber bone: Hank, the blues-singing Scranton Office Park security guard, proudly boasts that he owns 1/8 share of a rental property in Pittston. Pittston, Pa is a little hamlet a few miles outside of Scranton, and if I lived in Pittston, I would be popping my buttons with pride over getting a charming, off-the-wall shout-out on national TV.

The finale felt underwhelming to me, and I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t wrap up the loose ends with the “Scranton Strangler.” Let’s face it, the guy is a menace, and it would have brought a measure of comfort and closure to the good citizens of northeastern Pennsylvania to have him behind bars, and I don’t mean Poor Richard’s and Farley’s. Instead, the show’s writers seem to have choked on this one… (yikes), leaving the killer still on the loose throughout the summer hiatus! Where’s the justice in that? It’s like letting the pedophile win again! We can only hope that the Scranton Strangler also takes a break over the summer, not returning to his evil ways ’til the fall premiere.

As always, if there are Scranton area references that I missed, (and there probably are), I would love to hear about them. It’s been a lot of fun writing “Scrantonicity,” and thanks to all who took the time to read these ramblings.

~ Bob