Life In The Office

Way, way back in 2011, I read a synopsis of the upcoming Office episode “Trivia.” It described a trivia contest taking place in a bar, involving the whole Dunder-Mifflin gang. I remember thinking to myself “Well, this will be a slam-dunk Scrantonicity.” They almost always use a real Scranton bar, like Poor Richard’s or Farley’s or Tink’s. Even though they film in California, the top-drawer prop department has always liberally peppered the set with local items plucked from the enormous “Scranton prop-drop-box.” Well… that went by the wayside, once they established the astounding premise that the whole office crew would be traveling in a car caravan on the two-and-a-half hour sojourn to faraway Philadelphia… in the middle of wintery January… to drink in a bar, and then drive all the way home on the dark and ominous turnpike… To quote Toby, warning Michael Scott about the dangers of having Boy Scouts attend “Casino Night:”  Is that enough? Should I keep going?

The secondary plot of the episode didn’t bode well for Scrantonicity, either; considering it was taking place in Talahassee, Florida, home of Sabre Corporate Headquarters. OK, fine, I can adjust to that, and put on my “Talahassee-icity” hat. The prop department has never scrimped on local product placements when scenes were supposed to be taking place elsewhere; I recall reading where they badgered the city of Stamford, Connecticut for authentic props, and they made an effort with Winnipeg, Canada, and who can forget the “authentic” Sbarro Pizza in New York City? So, I was thrilled to see Dwight being dropped off in front of Sabre by a cab that was marked “Seminole Taxi Company.” There’s just one problem: I researched it, and there is no Seminole Taxi Company in Florida. That’s odd. When an Office character in Scranton comes or goes in a taxi, it has been clearly marked as a “McCarthy Flowered Cab,” complete with floral decals. (The McCarthy family started off as florists; I grew up next door to their floral shop.) It just seems strange to me that the show wouldn’t use that opportunity to “throw a bone” to loyal Florida “Office” viewers. I guess it’s just a show-biz mystery why some bones get thrown, and others don’t.

Back to the decision to drive all the way the heck from Scranton to Philadelphia to participate in a bar trivia contest; it seems to be one of those “compromise” decisions made in the writers’ room. They “rough-sketched” the gang going to a bar, and then they couldn’t resist the apparently “hilarious” idea of making it a gay bar. Despite the fact that a simple Google search indicates that there are gay bars located in and around the Scranton area, the writers must have felt the need to go more “cosmopolitan,” perhaps to justify the somewhat ludicrous $1000 trivia prize. So hence, they decided to hold the contest at the “Liberty Well,” a fictitious bar in “Philadelphia” where the tree outside the front door still has all its leaves in the dead of winter.

I started writing “Scrantonicity” because the show took such pains to make the world of Dunder-Mifflin look and feel “authentic.” That’s very charming, and I thought all that effort should be acknowledged. There aren’t too many TV shows that have bothered to do that. (Once in a blue moon, “Frasier” would toss in a Seattle reference, usually an incorrect one.) I even manage to rationalize and forgive the writers when they include inaccuracies about the Scranton area, like the “slow train to Philly” that doesn’t exist… and the “booze cruise” on shallow Lake Wallenpaupack… and the mysterious hallucinatory sandy beach on the Lake Scranton reservoir… those shows were so well written, that I now think there really oughta be a “booze cruise” on the ‘paupack… I know I’d book a cruise! But all those disparate Dunder-Mifflin employees deciding together to undertake an arduous two-and-a-half hour road trip to a Philadelphia bar for a trivia contest in the middle of a Pennsylvania winter… Jim leaving his wife and two kids, including a newborn that nobody seems to want to mention… Stanley, who has never been delighted to be in his co-workers’ company unless he’s “on the clock”… Phyllis, without her other half, Bob Vance… this all makes so little sense, that it seems like the wack work of hack fan-fiction.

Anyway, I can always count on some local beer product placement, and at least they didn’t disappoint me here. I saw bottles of Stegmaier Pale Ale, Yuengling Black and Tan, and Yuengling “green bottle” Lager, which I happened to discover is Barack Obama’s favorite beer. Oddly enough, the Yuengling website no longer features the “green bottle” Lager; it is now in a brown bottle. I wonder if that that switch was made for an ecological reason? Or an aesthetic one? Or is it just the color of the glass that was available at brewing time?

The ending of the episode takes place at yet another bar trivia contest; according to the whiteboards that contestants are displaying, they are at the “Lion Brewery” which is located in Wilkes Barre, Pa; just a hop, skip and a jump from Scranton, which makes a heck of lot more sense. What doesn’t make any sense is the fact that the Lion Brewery is just that; they brew the beer at that location. There is no brew pub. Just a little bit of trivia for you.

~ Bob