The Office marked a before and after for many television lovers. The tone, its performance and various moments have remained in the memory of critics, fans and even people close to the culture. Many of the latter may not have seen any of the episodes but have had contact with a meme or reference to the series. In its own way, positioned itself as a benchmark of contemporary humor and irony.
Currently, his followers can continue to cultivate and recreate part of the series' imagery through the specialized podcast, Office Ladies. It is a space led by the actresses Jenna Fischer, who played the role of Pam Beesly, and Angela Kinsey, who acted as Angela Martin. They, through different episodes, have been exploring various situations within the production.
One of the most recent has to do with the episode “Gossip”, broadcast during the year 2009. In it, Michael Scott (Steve Carell), Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) and Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) parody different parkour movements. This is a discipline, initially outside the context of The Office, it is focused on promoting body development, like any other exercise, but with urban resources. The detail is that the actors transformed the office and its surroundings as a training ground.
Behind the scenes of the Parkour scene
in The Office
Although The Office has its own universe of references, winks and plots, the series was very attentive to what happened in the real world to see how it could nurture its story. During the year of the aforementioned chapter, it seeks to reflect how parkour had entered American society, either as a fashion or as something more established. It must be remembered that this discipline originated in France, between the 80's and 90's.
But it was in the 2000s when he began to position himself outside those borders. Even David Guetta, perhaps as a tribute to his roots, used parkour specialists during one of the “Love Don't Leave Go” videos. That was in 2007. Two years later, when the episode of The Office premiered, the practice may have already been installed as part of the urban culture of the moment. Regarding the incorporation of this resource in “Gossip”, the moment was treated in the aforementioned podcast.
Shortly before filming began for The Office episode, Jenna Fischer contacted Paul Lieberstein, the director and writer of that episode, for more information. The folio only read that Michael, Dwight and Andy would do “office parkour”. Fischer explained that this entire scene was not choreographed and that the actors had no further preparation in the discipline. The director's order, as Fischer recalls, was to “clutter the place as much as possible and say 'parkour' with every move”.
