The Office Cold Open is so frustrating that it never aired again

There’s a long tradition of popular shows that some say are prideful, offending viewers. In the case of “The Simpsons”, for example, series of the series were completely banned in many countries for allegedly being insensitive to certain cultures (although, as creator Matt Groening once said in a BBC documentary, “It’s just a TV show, it’s a cute little cartoon”). Another time, it may be more justified to remove the series from the air. For example, after the Columbine killings in 1999, the WB made a controversial choice: postpone several episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. which featured a school shooting storyline (which turned out not to be a school shooting storyline). ​​​​​​While the choice to shoot these episodes was heavily criticized at the time, you can at least understand the network’s mentality.

Most recently CBS was forced to pull a scene from The Big Bang Theory because it was so dated. Similarly, a particular scene from “The Office” was removed from future broadcasts and releases of the episode due to what some felt was a highly inappropriate action by Steve Carell’s Michael Scott.

“But Michael Scott is known for being ridiculous,” I hear you say. That’s true, but it seems that NBC has drawn the line at fake suicide. That is, the network drew the line to one specific simulated suicide. In Season 3, Michael already pretended to jump off the roof of his office building to teach staff about safety. But in Season 6, he obviously took it too far by pulling a similar stunt in front of the kids.

Cold opens for “The Office” is considered one of the funniest moments in the show, and have become almost as beloved as the series itself. From Michael, Dwight and Andy’s foray into parkour to a series of fire drills opened one of the best and most chaotic episodes of The Office, the pre-title sequences are responsible for some legendary moments throughout the series’ nine seasons. However, one cold opening that would surely become just as legendary was never allowed to create such a legacy after being pulled from the show after it first aired. why? Because Michael pretended to take his own life in front of a group of kids.

The season 6 episode titled “Koi Pond” originally began with Dunder Mifflin employees hosting a haunted event for local Scranton children in their warehouse. The sequence begins with Michael greeting the children wearing costumes modeled after Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake in the classic Saturday Night Live digital short “D**k in a Box.” You might think that wearing an outfit designed to encourage a man to open a gift box placed above his crotch in front of children would be enough to get some viewers going, but Michael saved the real controversy for last.

After promising to “scare these kids so bad,” Dunder Mifflin’s boss disappears and the kids are led through the warehouse by a disinterested Daryl (Craig Robinson). At the very end, when the children are promised candy, Michael appears again, this time hanging from the rafters of the warehouse with a noose around his neck. The image of a man curling up in a noose with a gift box on his crotch while children scream at the sight was, believe it or not, a bit controversial. So controversial, in fact, that NBC practically erased all of that chill from the “Office” history books.

After The Haunted House aired in 2009, it never saw an official release again — save for The Office’s official YouTube channel briefly uploading and then removing the sequence after its initial broadcast. Not only that, but in 2021, NBC dropped the following broadcast and DVD releases Peacock began producing “Superfan” episodes of the TV series “The Office”, complete with missing and deleted scenes. But when the time came The Office season 6 “Superfan” episodes to hit the stretch, the cold open haunted house was nowhere to be seen. It can still be found onlinehowever, and has appeared intermittently on various websites since it first aired.

So what was the problem? It seems that there was never an official explanation, but AV club claims to have spoken to a “former producer” who wished to remain anonymous. According to the mysterious producer, the decision to open the cold in question was not only the result of resentment of the audience. Apparently, then-wife of NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, Caryn Zucker, did not object to the sequence because of her work in the field of suicide prevention. The producer alleges that Zucker pressured her husband to stop working, which resulted in the episode being “cut and broadcast, and the original HD-SR deliverers were collected from NBC and thrown into deep storage.”

Since then, some fans of The Office have called for an official re-release of this lost scene. Redditors wondered why NBC’s vaults were cold when the show had “a lot crazier stuff and a lot edgier jokes.” Others were grateful to be reminded of everything, with one user writing: “I knew I remembered it, but I thought I was just making it up in my head!” Elsewhere, several users claimed that the scene strangely lives on in the VUDU version of the episode, but no one will see it, so NBC can rest easy.