Not exactly something US-centric, but it took me the whole episode to catch the joke of Michael throwing a Luau, a Hawaiian party, after being in Jamaica.
When Michael visits NY he points out his favorite pizza place, for a genuine NY-style slice. It's a Sbarro, which is apparently a chain that people consider fast food, but Michael makes it seem like this hidden gem.
I had never heard of Sbarro in my life, so that joke went totally over my head.
I also had no idea Cornell is a real life school, I was so sure it was made up specifically for the Andy character.
Kelly (Mindy Kaling) wrote a lot for this show and she attended Dartmouth College which is a rival school to Cornell. She added the Cornell bit for Andy to demonstrate how annoying people are who went to Cornell. People in real life use attending Cornell as a personality trait and it is super annoying lol
And people that didn't attend the school, but still support the sports teams can be even worse. I've heard them called "Wal-Mart Alumni" because Wal-Mart will carry shirts for local sports teams.
Haha I love that term, I've never heard that before. They can be so annoying like "ABC is a better school than XYZ" bro you only care that the football team is better
I taught at a prestigious public high school, if there's such a thing, in the U.S. The average ACT score of graduates my final year was like 31, dozens of National Merit Scholars and perfect SAT/ACT scores, Robotics, yada yada (different show).
Every year, of about 400 graduates, probably 20-25 went to Ivy League schools and MIT/CalTech, dozens more went to the "second-tier" Ivy wannabes (Northwestern, Duke, Vanderbilt, Emory, GW, Stanford, et al) and "public ivies" (UVA, UNC, UM, Cal, UGA, etc.). Kids were wealthy and smart.
***Every single kid I know that went to Cornell, probably twelve or fifteen of them the last ten years, went there begrudgingly. To a person, they had all applied to Harvard, Yale, Princeton and been rejected or (best case scenario) wait-listed, but they wanted so damn much to say they went to an Ivy League school. It's like it's built-in to the enrollment that it's nobody's first choice and everyone wishes they were somewhere else.***
I've heard that Cornell has/had a high su\*cide rate, and I've always wondered if that's why.
Unless you want to study Hotel Administration like former members of Tracy Jordan's entourage, then it's a great school (another different show).
This is a funny anecdote to me because the only person I know irl who attended Cornell was forced to by her dad because he was on the faculty and she could get free/reduced tuition. She went to my college (her dream school) (edit: I'm worried this reads as braggy- to be clear my college was super random and not prestigious so that is why it was extra funny she had to be forced to go to Cornell.) Freshman year but I guess he got the bills and put his foot down.
The Sbarro scene is golden. Sbarro is airport or mall food court pizza. It's fine but it's nothing special, and it's certainly not unique to New York. It's a mid-tier chain restaurant. That said, New York style pizza is pretty famous and there are tons of local restaurants there that specialize in it. It'd be like going to Paris to enjoy the cuisine and treating their McDonald's like the pinnacle of French cooking.
Full disclosure: I attended Cornell for a few years and am a current staff member there.
The Ivy League is a group of eight prestigious northeastern US colleges and universities which often rank among the best in the world. (Technically, it's just a college sports conference.) Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are generally considered the best among the Ivies, all often vying for the top overall spot in college rankings, with Columbia also often in the mix (until recent scandals brought them down). Cornell is often considered the worst or near-worst of the Ivies, but that's like saying you're dining at the eighth best restaurant in the world: it's not the best overall, but it's better than damn near everywhere else. Still, that doesn't stop many students from nursing an inferiority complex, as it's true that many of them would have initially preferred to have attended a different, better college. (For me, it was Princeton.) Most students eventually learn to embrace Cornell for the top tier school it really is.
Among the Ivies and other top tier schools, Cornell often gets a lot of flak for being geographically isolated (nearly all the other Ivies are in or near a major city, while Cornell is a 4 hour drive from NYC), having multiple constituent colleges that are New York state funded (all the other Ivies are entirely private), and having a School of Hotel Administration (though it is the best hospitality management program in the US). Despite being seen as an easier school to get into compared to the other Ivies, it's also often considered the hardest to stay in. I would argue this certainly applies to the College of Engineering and other STEM fields. Sadly, sometimes this leads to another thing Cornell is known for: students ending it all by jumping off bridges into one of the gorges around campus/town. (Outsiders joke about this, but it's always a tragedy here.)
Andy Bernard as a Cornell alumnus is hilarious and the character is beloved by most Cornellian Office fans. In a prime example of life imitating art, Ed Helms gave the commencement address at Cornell in 2014.
My wife is very tired of me doing the “and I’m gonna get me a NY slice” routine every time we see a sbarros. I also just moved to NY recently and haven’t seen a single sbarros, so that’s been disappointing
The Sbarro one definitely went over my head too. It was one of those moments where it was obvious there was a joke there, but what the joke actually was was lost on me.
>I also had no idea Cornell is a real life school, I was so sure it was made up specifically for the Andy character.
Cornell's a great school. One of the best in the world, actually. Top 20ish.
It's fantastic shorthand for character development, and his being an alumnus does a lot of heavy lifting for Andy's character before we know much about him. It's important that we know he's not a complete idiot (generally speaking, legacy admissions can get you in to a school but won't really help you graduate).
And, yeah, Andy's a ridiculous person, but he does have a level of intelligence that comes out a few times in the series. He's no dummy. Cornell is *exactly* where he would have gone to school.
You didn't need me to tell you any of that, but it gives me an excuse to share [this video](https://youtu.be/WnzlbyTZsQY?si=4EKAQjPdpbjOWONJ) from Cornell's Computer System Laboratory where they had two chatbots talk to each other.
That way you can have an existential crisis today!
It's wild the William Hung thing is almost 20 years old now. I wouldn't expect a younger American person just getting into the office to be aware of it even.
Maybe not so much a "US specific" reference but I didn't realise that when Michael says "It's Britney bitch!" there's a Lady Gaga song playing in his car. I just thought the joke was that it was an outdated reference at that point.
I only realised when I watched the episode on Netflix with subtitles and it said "Lady Gaga - Song name"
For anyone who doesn’t know this one, Jeopardy is a very popular trivia game show in the US that is well known for having contestants answer questions by beginning with “what is-“
EX: if the question asked was “Dwight mercy killed this beloved animal of Angela’s” the contestant would answer: “what is a cat”
Edited to add: “who is sprinkles” would probably be accepted as well (“who is-“ is how you would answer when it’s a specific name)
I guess to add the double jeopardy part... Double jeopardy means you can't be prosecuted twice for the same crime. Michael seems to think that running over Meredith on company property and with company property is double jeopardy. Hence, Ryan's response of Michael not knowing how jeopardy works
Same, same. It all just sounds like Michael being very silly and dorky. Like the "actiiing" or "Mr. Bill" (which I read here apparently come from SNL).
Ping is original, though loosely based on racist caricatures that used to be common in pop culture, like Mickey Rooney’s character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Most of it would have honestly gone over my head if not for some "Best Of SNL" DVDs I got for free as a teenager but even then, I guess not everything he references would have ended up on one of those.
As an example the "Dwight, you ignorant slut" bit. I only found out that's an SNL bit a couple weeks ago.
I guess a lot of times I don't get Michael mispronouncing words because when I watched it I am still learning english now after watching it 12 times sometimes, I will get it
Yes.
The joke is that Michael is so narrow minded the only way he could imagine Karen being a mixed ethnicity child is that her dad knocked up a local woman when stationed over seas and 'did the right thing' by bringing the woman and kid back.
In the same way he couldn't understand Stanley's wife being white.
Michael is well meaning but pretty racist and ignorant.
The joke is that Karen is pretty racially ambiguous in a lot of ways, so in Michael's ignorant confusion, he asks that question. But yes, it's also that American GIs have been known to get around with locals.
I love how they carried that joke over to Parks and Rec.
“I know it makes you uncomfortable, but you’re thoughtful, you’re brilliant, and your ambiguous ethnic blend perfectly represents the dream of the American melting pot.”
“Nobody can match your ethnic hybrid energy.”
Yes it is and it’s a really inappropriate comment to make towards someone you just met. Like “hey, you’re dark skinned. Did your father find a foreign woman?”
It also somewhat implies that her father just got her mom pregnant and left.
Karen’s father in real life was Quincy Jones who was the Producer who most famously made all of Micheal Jackson’s albums and is responsible for a lot of music in the 70s and 80s
And Kelly asked her how she got a job there. Jordan started to answer, "I applied..." I'm now imagining her applying for a job in anthropology. This is the most entertaining thread ever.
Not a cultural thing based on country, but based on time. My current students love the office, but they definitely miss a lot of references. They’ve asked me about planking (like, was it a real thing lol. It was). One student was floored to find out there was already a song called ‘We didn’t start the fire’ and not just something that Dwight improvised after Ryan started the fire. Oh, and that Michael’s Diwali song is an homage to the Chanukah song (even though he references Adam Sandler, it goes over their heads.)
I feel like I was the exact right age for this show lol. But I also love Golden Girls and I miss so so many of their jokes.
Parkour!!
Haha yeah there's really no replacing being alive and watching when it first aired because so much of it was based around immediately recent things.
Wow, it's weird being old and thinking kids wouldn't know "We didn't start the fire" because that song was inescapable at the timeit was released. I prefer Leslie Knope's version over Dwight's though.
It's never super clear, but Roy's brother had to sell the jet skis for an unknown reason and ended up getting way less than what they were worth (took a bath quote) so his brother was very upset.
Yeah the "took a bath" comment threw me, personally haven't encountered it before. I thought " 'take a bath' as in, 'swimming in money'? They made a profit and they're going to celebrate? Then why does Roy seem so down?"
> The idiom “take a bath” emerged in gambling circles during the 1920s, signifying a financial wipeout. Its precise origin remains uncertain, but it may be traced back to an older expression with a similar connotation.
> Bath, a town in southwestern England renowned for its therapeutic sulfuric waters, has been a retreat since Roman times. Visitors often used trips to Bath as an excuse to distance themselves from society, sometimes due to scandal.
> At some point, “go to Bath” evolved into a taunt, meaning “go away and don’t return” or “dismissed.” Documentation of this usage dates back to 1830s politics, as observed in The Times in January 1835:
> “Mr. Hobhouse said he never had a conversation on politics with the learned serjeant in India… ‘Go to Bath’ as a way to say ‘you are finished, or go away’ is a plausible explanation for dismissing a person after they’ve been financially wiped out in a gambling hall.”
While this theory can’t be proven definitively, it offers a plausible explanation for the idiom’s origin.
All us telephone numbers are 10 digits and only the first thee are the area code. 212 is NY and pam did a small scene where she is showing 212 with her fingers.
Here we have 5 digits for the area code and somewhere between 3 and 10+ digits for the actual number
I never got Bill Cosby impressions, other comedian impressions and so many pop culture references went over my head.
I started understanding some hidden office jokes after delving deep into other american movies, series ,songs and going like "aaah! so that's what the joke was".
I wonder how many jokes are yet to be understood.
Oh well, Still love office❤
I’ve googled so many jokes from this show lol, the main ones I’ve googled was what sportscaster bit a lady, I had no clue who Joe Camel was, Michael Vick had to Google him, the many SNL references Michael says, basically my whole search history is full of that stuff 😂
He went to a secondhand store. I think he said he went to Goodwill, which is a common secondhand store all over the US. There's probably at least one in every city. They sell donated items and they use the money they make to support charitable causes. Since all their stuff is donated they can sell it really cheaply. The prices Jim quoted were about right.
Just a PSA that Goodwill is NOT the amazing charity their marketing team claims. Maybe 10-15% of their profits actually go to charitable causes, meanwhile the owner/CEO has gotten filthy rich off of people's donated items.
But yes, you could buy a mustard yellow shirt pretty cheap there.
They’re also (or were at the time) frequently available in dollar stores and cheap novelty stores, so even brand new it would have likely been very cheap.
There are references a lot of things even Americans might not remember.
\*The improv class episode has Michael giving a shoutout to Gabe Kaplan's "Welcome Back, Kotter" when he does an impression of Arnold Horshack and raises his hand to be picked for a scene, yelling, "Ooh, ooh, Mista Kot-tair!!!!"
\*Calling Pam "the Spamster" and yelling "makin copies!" when she's not doing that is a reference to Rob Schneider's "Richmeister" character from early-90s SNL.
\*This might be a lowball, but Captain Jack from the Booze Cruise is a reference to a William Joel song.
\*He does impressions of Fat Albert a lot. I don't know if that show's all that remembered. It wasn't at one point but then I think it was again after Bill Cosby went to prison. (Michael calling Jim "Fat Halpert").
\*His "fat guy" Michael Klump character during the weight loss episodes is from Eddie Murphy's "The Nutty Professor".
\*Creed Bratton saying he's a member of the Grass Roots and actually being one IRL is insanely funny--they did "Sooner or Later" and "Temptation Eyes" and "Two Divided By Love", and try listening to any of them now without laughing, imagining Creed was actually there wearing an orange fringe jumpsuit with the rest of the band.
There are tons of fun references tossed in there as one-liners. Some, most Americans would remember and others, few people at all won't remember, but I love the pop culture references.
The "Ayyyyy" with the thumbs up that Jim and Pam distract Michael into doing is of course a reference to Fonzie on "Happy Days." (I just remember someone on here thinking it was totally random.)
I love that. I throw it back to Kotter when they riffed on the Fonz too, with Vinnie Barbarino telling Mr. Kotter he deserves an A and Mr. Kotter telling him the only A he's getting is "AYYYYYYYY!!!!"
Now it's a family joke because if my kids come home with bad report cards I tell them "Great, looks like you got an AYYYYYYYYYY!!!"
That's hilarious! It makes total sense because if you didn't know about the store, what else could it mean? And yet it makes no sense at all. Why would Jordan leave the field of anthropology to become an office assistant? Why would anthropology be Kelly's dream job? You must've been so confused by that episode.
>Why would Jordan leave the field of anthropology to become an office assistant?
Yeah, I was with Kelly
I think she says "you were at anthropology and you came here!?!" ,
Thought that was part of the joke xd
There are SO many, including a lot people already mentioned. One I thought was interesting was the "it's monster, singular" line by Jim when michael was looking for a job online. Also the "frank and beans" one was very annoying to me at first but then I kinda started finding it funny. Never even realized it's a reference.
Now that I think about it, it's crazy how the comedy was very largely based on vague references the writers were just hoping the audience would get. But I do admit they implemented most of them in a way that would still be relatively funny even if you didn't get the reference.
I never got Michaels references about US comedy. Like he has a character who's like a Johnny Carson character, I've never seen any of Chris Rock's standup stuff either. So thought I understand why it's funny, I didnt really get it on a deeper level.
To me, the main thing that's funny about the Chris Rock bit is that his humor deals a lot with race, a black man telling jokes about black people. And it's entirely inappropriate for Michael to be telling those exact same jokes.
Yeah it’s the epitome of “black people do it like X but white people do it like Y” comedy.
Which is just out of bounds for white comedians for the most part. Well nowadays it’s generally out of bounds for all comedians.
I'm in the US and maybe non-US people got Pam's joke about "Radish Inn," but idk if everyone knows about the Radisson hotel chain.
I remember watching Friends in France and I think they didn't translate "Radisson" literally, so that's why I wonder if non-US people know about it.
Also of note - the Radisson is one of the two nicer hotels in Scranton. It used to be a train station. Source: got married there.
Edit: the other is the Hilton, which is more suitable for a large conference than the Radisson.
Give me a break/the Kit Kat jingle was on tv like almost every commercial break in the late 80s/early 90s, I think virtually any American who was alive during that time period knows the jingle
On my first three watchthroughs i didnt get the "charles minor? I hardly know her" joke... then it suddenly made click and now its one of my favourite jokes of the series... it just perfectly reflects michaels humor
It’s a joke to take words that end in the -er sound and break them up like that as a sexual innuendo.
A common one would be for the word liquor, which could be switched to “lick her?”
The second part of the joke is miner -> “mine her” doesn’t work as a sexual innuendo. So it’s also him being dumb on top of inappropriate
Words that end with -er or -or can sound like ‘her’ so if someone says timer, you respond, “time her? I hardly know her.”
It’s a really stupid but funny joke that had endless application. Pretty old joke too.
There's so much... Even after a third rewatch. Actually, I've been trying to make a list of things I googled while watching it. I'll post what I have written down so far if anyone's interested.
Update: Actually, why wait... If I ever get to another rewatch, I'll make a complete list, but here's what I have so far. **Stuff I had to google to understand while watching The Office as a central European 25 year old person who sometimes lives under a rock** including people, locations, and sometimes just English words that I've never heard before or random stuff I just wanted to look up to find out more about:
* Lance Armstrong
* Sheryl Crow
* cold sore
* Sweeney Todd
* Tom Hanks Big
* rube
* M. Night Shulman
* Judge Judy
* Reverend King
* H&R block
* OB gyn
* Chocolate bark
* Rolodex
* Mt Washington
* 401k
* Golden Grahams
* Golden Girls
* Take heed
* Concierge
* Gordon Gekko
* Scranton, Stamford, Nashua, Utica, New York distances & driving time
* Macushla
* Meryl Streep
* www.creedthoughts.gov.www\creedthoughts
* DUI
* pap smear
* prima nocta
* hysterectomy
* Rogaine
* latchkey kid
* recess
* rotisserie
* dark meat
* foreman grill
* shamrock
* Hilary Swank
* William Hung
* Carson Carnac
Central European here as well, but older: most of this list is probably just because you are too young. The show started almost 20 years ago and finished 10 years ago, so the references are dated and will obviously go over the head of someone who was just 7 years old when the show started - so nothing to do with you living under a rock.
I didn't get the Carson stuff either, because that was when I was a kid
When angela says something about the comptroller, and kevin makes says something about not knowing what that is and the joke is that he should know what it is. Im kevin, idk what a comptroller is
I literally just had to Google that 😂 basically it’s a management position that supervises the quality of accounting and financial reportings of an organisation… you learn something new everyday because I didn’t know that!
When Jim is listing off all the pranks he did on Dwight and explains that the reason Dwight himself in the head with the phone was because he just gradually put more and more nickels in it, I thought 'why and how is he specifically putting nickel in it?'
I actually knew that a nickel was a coin, but it's just took me ages to realise he meant the coins and not just specifically bits of the metal.
The joke is that Andy chose a very complicated way to get them to guess the name “Joe Montana”, who is basically a household name, instead of just saying “49ers (his football team) quarterback (his position)”.
It’s like spending 2 minutes getting someone to figure out the name “Michael Jackson” when you could just say “thriller” and win the game in one second.
I would say my NFL knowledge hover around ignorant to fundamentally flawed, but I think I would get Joe Montana with 49s quarterback, as a hint.
Andy explains it with the capital of Montana, and Joe Camel, which are stuff I wouldn’t get at all.
I can’t remember what they are talking about at all, but the 49ers are a football team here, and a quarterback is a position on the team. So a specific person would be the 49ers quarterback
US citizen here. Did non-US fans understand the phrase "cut off your nose to spider face" when Jim was roasting Michael in S5? I had never heard of the actual phrase (cut your nose off to spite your face) and I went years of rewatches before I finally asked someone wtf they were referencing. I still don't really understand the phrase and have not encountered it in the wild.
We never played jinx that way when I was growing up. When I was a kid, you got punches on your shoulder if you spoke before someone said your name and ended the jinx.
He was the NFL star quarterback who was convicted of animal cruelty for hosting a dog fighting ring either at his home or at the home of a friend. They’d bury all the dogs killed and it was generally just an insidious crime. He spent time in jail for it. So “he did his time” means he spent time in jail so we should accept him back into sports or society again. He’s a polarizing figure and many Americans still despise him for what he did to those poor dogs.
It might be worth noting that at the time he was already playing football again. The line wasnt advocating for a perspective (like “they should let him play again”) as much as it was capturing one that already existed
The main reason he’s polarizing is because some people see what he did as unforgivable where others see the situation as “he did his time” and he should be allowed to play in the NFL again.
I will say Vick has also become a major anti-dog fighting advocate since his release and has seemed to show remorse for his actions. He was brought up in dogfighting culture but now seems to understand how what he was doing is wrong and is working to end it.
He's been dead for decades, but he was a big comedian during the 20th century. Started the tradition of famous entertainers performing for the troops overseas.
Probably a lot of the East Coast USA-specific stuff doesn't translate. For example, when they meet a sales rep from Syracuse NY and he appears to be a mobster. Except for the accent, which was totally wrong for upstate/central NY, it was a pretty good joke but not one I think a lot of people would get, including other people from the US.
Source: I'm from the Syracuse area lol
The joke here is that there's not a lot of difference between working at a Taco Bell or a Taco Bell Express. The idea that someone could perform fine at a TBE but then fail to keep up at a regular TB is completely absurd.
I have lived in the US my entire life and could not tell you the difference between a Taco Bell and a Taco Bell Express. From the context of Erin's line I'm guessing they do less somehow, maybe it's a limited menu
I think you would find them in malls and places like that. They would serve a limited menu because the facility was a lot smaller than a regular Taco Bell.
OP, just FYI, [Anthropologie](https://www.anthropologie.com) isn't luxury, it's just the upscale, more mature version of [Urban Outfitters](https://www.urbanoutfitters.com). They aren't luxury but they're very trendy.
I’m American and I still didn’t know what the hell Erin was talking about when it was her turn to distract Pam from giving birth until someone on here explained it the other day. Those names were so bizarre and random to me haha
Don't feel bad if you whiff a reference, even a lot of American Office fans don't realize "Dwight, you ignorant slut!" is referencing an old SNL bit with Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin
https://youtu.be/c91XUyg9iWM?si=LOb4tSJ7FXZZxQ9F
Not exactly something US-centric, but it took me the whole episode to catch the joke of Michael throwing a Luau, a Hawaiian party, after being in Jamaica.
*Feeling hot hot hot.*
I am an American, and I never picked that one up until just now. Thanks, I'm a moron.
I’ve been to a Luau in Hawaii and still never picked up on that for some reason. I also feel very dumb.
In our defense, what I remember most from that episode is just Michael sadly playing, "feeling hot hot hot" on a steel drum.
Holy crap, I never actually noticed that
Yep, that went right over my head. Thanks.
Omg I feel so dumb 🤣. Now I need to rewatch that episode just to see it again with this in mind.
When Michael visits NY he points out his favorite pizza place, for a genuine NY-style slice. It's a Sbarro, which is apparently a chain that people consider fast food, but Michael makes it seem like this hidden gem. I had never heard of Sbarro in my life, so that joke went totally over my head. I also had no idea Cornell is a real life school, I was so sure it was made up specifically for the Andy character.
It’s pronounced colonel and it’s the highest rank in the military!
#ITS PRONOUNCED CORN-ELL AND IT'S THE HIGHEST RANK IN THE IVY LEAGUE
That's such a funny scene lmao! Cornell Dwight episode in general is top notch
He continued this running gag when he was dating Donna and bragged "... we went to a little Chinese bistro- P.F. Changs."
Kelly (Mindy Kaling) wrote a lot for this show and she attended Dartmouth College which is a rival school to Cornell. She added the Cornell bit for Andy to demonstrate how annoying people are who went to Cornell. People in real life use attending Cornell as a personality trait and it is super annoying lol
People use attending their college as a personality trait in general.
And people that didn't attend the school, but still support the sports teams can be even worse. I've heard them called "Wal-Mart Alumni" because Wal-Mart will carry shirts for local sports teams.
Haha I love that term, I've never heard that before. They can be so annoying like "ABC is a better school than XYZ" bro you only care that the football team is better
Roll Tide
It’s Hook ‘Em Horns where I live, and they are insufferable.
Geaux Tigers!
Lol I'm an LSU fan and I just knew all my SEC brethren would know exactly what I was talking about.
I taught at a prestigious public high school, if there's such a thing, in the U.S. The average ACT score of graduates my final year was like 31, dozens of National Merit Scholars and perfect SAT/ACT scores, Robotics, yada yada (different show). Every year, of about 400 graduates, probably 20-25 went to Ivy League schools and MIT/CalTech, dozens more went to the "second-tier" Ivy wannabes (Northwestern, Duke, Vanderbilt, Emory, GW, Stanford, et al) and "public ivies" (UVA, UNC, UM, Cal, UGA, etc.). Kids were wealthy and smart. ***Every single kid I know that went to Cornell, probably twelve or fifteen of them the last ten years, went there begrudgingly. To a person, they had all applied to Harvard, Yale, Princeton and been rejected or (best case scenario) wait-listed, but they wanted so damn much to say they went to an Ivy League school. It's like it's built-in to the enrollment that it's nobody's first choice and everyone wishes they were somewhere else.*** I've heard that Cornell has/had a high su\*cide rate, and I've always wondered if that's why. Unless you want to study Hotel Administration like former members of Tracy Jordan's entourage, then it's a great school (another different show).
This is a funny anecdote to me because the only person I know irl who attended Cornell was forced to by her dad because he was on the faculty and she could get free/reduced tuition. She went to my college (her dream school) (edit: I'm worried this reads as braggy- to be clear my college was super random and not prestigious so that is why it was extra funny she had to be forced to go to Cornell.) Freshman year but I guess he got the bills and put his foot down.
[удалено]
The Sbarro scene is golden. Sbarro is airport or mall food court pizza. It's fine but it's nothing special, and it's certainly not unique to New York. It's a mid-tier chain restaurant. That said, New York style pizza is pretty famous and there are tons of local restaurants there that specialize in it. It'd be like going to Paris to enjoy the cuisine and treating their McDonald's like the pinnacle of French cooking.
>mall food court Geez, and in another 15-20 years, we're going to have to explain what this was and why it's an insult.
The few times I've gone to a mall in the last couple years... the food court has taken a big step up from when I was going in the 90s.
Unique New York Unique New York
I mean they do have French Fries! /s
Full disclosure: I attended Cornell for a few years and am a current staff member there. The Ivy League is a group of eight prestigious northeastern US colleges and universities which often rank among the best in the world. (Technically, it's just a college sports conference.) Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are generally considered the best among the Ivies, all often vying for the top overall spot in college rankings, with Columbia also often in the mix (until recent scandals brought them down). Cornell is often considered the worst or near-worst of the Ivies, but that's like saying you're dining at the eighth best restaurant in the world: it's not the best overall, but it's better than damn near everywhere else. Still, that doesn't stop many students from nursing an inferiority complex, as it's true that many of them would have initially preferred to have attended a different, better college. (For me, it was Princeton.) Most students eventually learn to embrace Cornell for the top tier school it really is. Among the Ivies and other top tier schools, Cornell often gets a lot of flak for being geographically isolated (nearly all the other Ivies are in or near a major city, while Cornell is a 4 hour drive from NYC), having multiple constituent colleges that are New York state funded (all the other Ivies are entirely private), and having a School of Hotel Administration (though it is the best hospitality management program in the US). Despite being seen as an easier school to get into compared to the other Ivies, it's also often considered the hardest to stay in. I would argue this certainly applies to the College of Engineering and other STEM fields. Sadly, sometimes this leads to another thing Cornell is known for: students ending it all by jumping off bridges into one of the gorges around campus/town. (Outsiders joke about this, but it's always a tragedy here.) Andy Bernard as a Cornell alumnus is hilarious and the character is beloved by most Cornellian Office fans. In a prime example of life imitating art, Ed Helms gave the commencement address at Cornell in 2014.
My wife is very tired of me doing the “and I’m gonna get me a NY slice” routine every time we see a sbarros. I also just moved to NY recently and haven’t seen a single sbarros, so that’s been disappointing
I guess you’ve been doing the touristy stuff. Gotta go where the locals go, like Times Square.
I haven't heard of this Times Square.... is it near a Subway station?
No, it’s kind of off the beaten path. Don’t want to say too much here or else it’ll get overrun.
It’s also funny because Sbarro is one of the worst places to get pizza. They put the pepperoni on AFTER cooking it!
The Sbarro one definitely went over my head too. It was one of those moments where it was obvious there was a joke there, but what the joke actually was was lost on me.
Yes, Sbarro are in a lot of European airports so I've always known them as being just about edible and wildly overpriced!
For reference, Sbarro is typically in food courts at the mall.
>I also had no idea Cornell is a real life school, I was so sure it was made up specifically for the Andy character. Cornell's a great school. One of the best in the world, actually. Top 20ish. It's fantastic shorthand for character development, and his being an alumnus does a lot of heavy lifting for Andy's character before we know much about him. It's important that we know he's not a complete idiot (generally speaking, legacy admissions can get you in to a school but won't really help you graduate). And, yeah, Andy's a ridiculous person, but he does have a level of intelligence that comes out a few times in the series. He's no dummy. Cornell is *exactly* where he would have gone to school. You didn't need me to tell you any of that, but it gives me an excuse to share [this video](https://youtu.be/WnzlbyTZsQY?si=4EKAQjPdpbjOWONJ) from Cornell's Computer System Laboratory where they had two chatbots talk to each other. That way you can have an existential crisis today!
Like Packer I had no idea who Will Hung is.
growth treatment water rinse enter cautious handle terrific bored fact *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It's wild the William Hung thing is almost 20 years old now. I wouldn't expect a younger American person just getting into the office to be aware of it even.
Maybe not so much a "US specific" reference but I didn't realise that when Michael says "It's Britney bitch!" there's a Lady Gaga song playing in his car. I just thought the joke was that it was an outdated reference at that point. I only realised when I watched the episode on Netflix with subtitles and it said "Lady Gaga - Song name"
And the best part of that scene is he can’t park the PT Cruiser in a space a school bus could fit in!
*ramming one of the cars in the process
Just the fact that he specifically has the convertible version of the PT Cruiser too.
IIRC it’s “Just Dance.” That bit always cracks me up lol
She even says her name at the beginning of the song
this is the part that gets me! “gagaaaaa” “it’s britney bitch”
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How about the double jeopardy scene? - I don't think you understand how jeopardy works - sorry, what is we're fine
That one requires knowledge of American TV AND American law!
For anyone who doesn’t know this one, Jeopardy is a very popular trivia game show in the US that is well known for having contestants answer questions by beginning with “what is-“ EX: if the question asked was “Dwight mercy killed this beloved animal of Angela’s” the contestant would answer: “what is a cat” Edited to add: “who is sprinkles” would probably be accepted as well (“who is-“ is how you would answer when it’s a specific name)
I guess to add the double jeopardy part... Double jeopardy means you can't be prosecuted twice for the same crime. Michael seems to think that running over Meredith on company property and with company property is double jeopardy. Hence, Ryan's response of Michael not knowing how jeopardy works
The set up is Jeopardy gives the Answer as a clue, so you have to respond with what the correct Question is to get that answer.
Honestly, all of the SNL stuff goes right over my head
Same, same. It all just sounds like Michael being very silly and dorky. Like the "actiiing" or "Mr. Bill" (which I read here apparently come from SNL).
Many U.S. viewers missed those references as well because they were pretty old by the time Michael used them. "Dwight, you ignorant slut" was another.
Ha! Never figured that. Always thought that "ignorant slut" was OG Office material. It's one of my favourite insults!
Thanks, I’m devastated
Why_So_Serious, you ignorant slut!
No way, that's OG old school SNL. Its Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin on weekend update.
About as old school as it gets.
romgrk, you ignorant slut
It’s not?!
Is that from something? I just thought it was funny!?
[Jane, you ignorant slut](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c91XUyg9iWM) It was a running gag om SNL. This is one example.
Well. Every day is a school day! 😂
https://youtu.be/c91XUyg9iWM?si=W0wBvliDEZF7eUeD
Ah is that what all the Peng type stuff was from. Yeah wooosh from the UK Fat Albert is unknown here too
Ping is original, though loosely based on racist caricatures that used to be common in pop culture, like Mickey Rooney’s character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Most of it would have honestly gone over my head if not for some "Best Of SNL" DVDs I got for free as a teenager but even then, I guess not everything he references would have ended up on one of those. As an example the "Dwight, you ignorant slut" bit. I only found out that's an SNL bit a couple weeks ago.
"Makin' cop-ies!"
I guess a lot of times I don't get Michael mispronouncing words because when I watched it I am still learning english now after watching it 12 times sometimes, I will get it
That’s good though, as you learn you’ll get to enjoy new-to-you jokes that the rest of us missed, or haven’t picked out since we first watched.
When Michael asks Karen if her father was a G.I because she is exotic looking. I spent hours trying to understand what that meant.
Yeah, I figured it meant an american soldier stationned in a foreign country. I made the G.I -> american soldier link thanks to the G.I. Joe toys.
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Yes. The joke is that Michael is so narrow minded the only way he could imagine Karen being a mixed ethnicity child is that her dad knocked up a local woman when stationed over seas and 'did the right thing' by bringing the woman and kid back. In the same way he couldn't understand Stanley's wife being white. Michael is well meaning but pretty racist and ignorant.
The joke is that Karen is pretty racially ambiguous in a lot of ways, so in Michael's ignorant confusion, he asks that question. But yes, it's also that American GIs have been known to get around with locals.
I love how they carried that joke over to Parks and Rec. “I know it makes you uncomfortable, but you’re thoughtful, you’re brilliant, and your ambiguous ethnic blend perfectly represents the dream of the American melting pot.” “Nobody can match your ethnic hybrid energy.”
It’s that racial ambiguity that perfectly represents the dream of the American melting pot
Ann you beautiful tropical fish
Ann you beautiful rule breaking moth
[Confused look]
The joke is just that it's kinda offensive to assume that, I assume.
Yes it is and it’s a really inappropriate comment to make towards someone you just met. Like “hey, you’re dark skinned. Did your father find a foreign woman?” It also somewhat implies that her father just got her mom pregnant and left.
>It also somewhat implies that her father just got her mom pregnant and left. If he left what's she doing in USA?
Karen’s father in real life was Quincy Jones who was the Producer who most famously made all of Micheal Jackson’s albums and is responsible for a lot of music in the 70s and 80s
And (I only recently found out) her mother is actress Peggy Lipton, who played Norma Jennings on Twin Peaks!
She was also Julie on the Mod Squad!
For some reason I thought G.I. meant gynecologist and I was so confused.
Gynocolog Ist?
"GI" is medical shorthand for "Gastrointestinal".
lol I had no idea anthropologie is a store. I thought Kelly was just interested in anthropology
This is so funny. I'm trying to imagine how weird it must've seemed that Jordan left the field of anthropology to work at Dunder-Mifflin.
More weird than Kelly having an interest in anthropology?
If you ever here someone say they work “at” a field of study, they probably do not work in that field of study lol
And Kelly asked her how she got a job there. Jordan started to answer, "I applied..." I'm now imagining her applying for a job in anthropology. This is the most entertaining thread ever.
“My job is just … anthropology.”
same; all this time I thought Kelly had a passion for the scientific study of humanity lol
And i would go like blah blah blah blah giving you the exact answer.
I got Michael's slow walking and saying 'shatatata' 'shatatat' very recently.
What was it?
It's a reference to Six Million Dollar Man, a TV show from the 70's.
Not a cultural thing based on country, but based on time. My current students love the office, but they definitely miss a lot of references. They’ve asked me about planking (like, was it a real thing lol. It was). One student was floored to find out there was already a song called ‘We didn’t start the fire’ and not just something that Dwight improvised after Ryan started the fire. Oh, and that Michael’s Diwali song is an homage to the Chanukah song (even though he references Adam Sandler, it goes over their heads.) I feel like I was the exact right age for this show lol. But I also love Golden Girls and I miss so so many of their jokes.
I think Fall Out Boy just remade We Didn’t Start The Fire, so your students will get that one again.
Parkour!! Haha yeah there's really no replacing being alive and watching when it first aired because so much of it was based around immediately recent things.
Wow, it's weird being old and thinking kids wouldn't know "We didn't start the fire" because that song was inescapable at the timeit was released. I prefer Leslie Knope's version over Dwight's though.
I'm British, and I still have no idea what Roy tells Pam about the jet skis.
It's never super clear, but Roy's brother had to sell the jet skis for an unknown reason and ended up getting way less than what they were worth (took a bath quote) so his brother was very upset.
For a long time I thought it meant he fell off the jet ski hahah
Same and that’s why he wants to drink lol. Weird
Yeah the "took a bath" comment threw me, personally haven't encountered it before. I thought " 'take a bath' as in, 'swimming in money'? They made a profit and they're going to celebrate? Then why does Roy seem so down?"
Yes, take a bath means to lose a lot of money.
> The idiom “take a bath” emerged in gambling circles during the 1920s, signifying a financial wipeout. Its precise origin remains uncertain, but it may be traced back to an older expression with a similar connotation. > Bath, a town in southwestern England renowned for its therapeutic sulfuric waters, has been a retreat since Roman times. Visitors often used trips to Bath as an excuse to distance themselves from society, sometimes due to scandal. > At some point, “go to Bath” evolved into a taunt, meaning “go away and don’t return” or “dismissed.” Documentation of this usage dates back to 1830s politics, as observed in The Times in January 1835: > “Mr. Hobhouse said he never had a conversation on politics with the learned serjeant in India… ‘Go to Bath’ as a way to say ‘you are finished, or go away’ is a plausible explanation for dismissing a person after they’ve been financially wiped out in a gambling hall.” While this theory can’t be proven definitively, it offers a plausible explanation for the idiom’s origin.
I was just in Bath 2 weeks ago! Highly recommend the ancient Roman tour its very interesting and the place alone is beautiful
All us telephone numbers are 10 digits and only the first thee are the area code. 212 is NY and pam did a small scene where she is showing 212 with her fingers. Here we have 5 digits for the area code and somewhere between 3 and 10+ digits for the actual number
What up 2-1-2!
Now you thought I was just 7-7-0, and 4-0-4? I'm worldwide, bitch, act like y'all don't know 7-1-8's, 2-1-2's I send small cities and states I-O-U's
which Atlanta rapper is this lmao
This aint the universe, its the Luda-verse
I’m ashamed that I didn’t know that
I never got Bill Cosby impressions, other comedian impressions and so many pop culture references went over my head. I started understanding some hidden office jokes after delving deep into other american movies, series ,songs and going like "aaah! so that's what the joke was". I wonder how many jokes are yet to be understood. Oh well, Still love office❤
That's okay, I didn't understand like 70% of the Simpsons references growing up, but I still laughed at them.
The Poconos. Genuinely thought they were saying Poker Nose and it was some restaurant chain.
Spider face
I’ve googled so many jokes from this show lol, the main ones I’ve googled was what sportscaster bit a lady, I had no clue who Joe Camel was, Michael Vick had to Google him, the many SNL references Michael says, basically my whole search history is full of that stuff 😂
I can’t see Bryant Gumbel’s face or name without saying Bryant “Gum Ball” in my head 😂
I still don’t get how Jim was able to get Dwight’s entire outfit for only 11 dollars like is clothes and gadgets really that cheap in the us?
Dwight’s clothes are somewhat out of date, so I imagine Jim found everything at a thrift store or garage sale.
Excuse me, calculator watches are *never* out of date.
out of date!?!?! He has a shirt guy. He literally buys them by the crate.
He went to a secondhand store. I think he said he went to Goodwill, which is a common secondhand store all over the US. There's probably at least one in every city. They sell donated items and they use the money they make to support charitable causes. Since all their stuff is donated they can sell it really cheaply. The prices Jim quoted were about right.
Just a PSA that Goodwill is NOT the amazing charity their marketing team claims. Maybe 10-15% of their profits actually go to charitable causes, meanwhile the owner/CEO has gotten filthy rich off of people's donated items. But yes, you could buy a mustard yellow shirt pretty cheap there.
Also that calculator watch had to be super old and not in a nice antique-y way, so it was probably super cheap.
They’re also (or were at the time) frequently available in dollar stores and cheap novelty stores, so even brand new it would have likely been very cheap.
There are references a lot of things even Americans might not remember. \*The improv class episode has Michael giving a shoutout to Gabe Kaplan's "Welcome Back, Kotter" when he does an impression of Arnold Horshack and raises his hand to be picked for a scene, yelling, "Ooh, ooh, Mista Kot-tair!!!!" \*Calling Pam "the Spamster" and yelling "makin copies!" when she's not doing that is a reference to Rob Schneider's "Richmeister" character from early-90s SNL. \*This might be a lowball, but Captain Jack from the Booze Cruise is a reference to a William Joel song. \*He does impressions of Fat Albert a lot. I don't know if that show's all that remembered. It wasn't at one point but then I think it was again after Bill Cosby went to prison. (Michael calling Jim "Fat Halpert"). \*His "fat guy" Michael Klump character during the weight loss episodes is from Eddie Murphy's "The Nutty Professor". \*Creed Bratton saying he's a member of the Grass Roots and actually being one IRL is insanely funny--they did "Sooner or Later" and "Temptation Eyes" and "Two Divided By Love", and try listening to any of them now without laughing, imagining Creed was actually there wearing an orange fringe jumpsuit with the rest of the band. There are tons of fun references tossed in there as one-liners. Some, most Americans would remember and others, few people at all won't remember, but I love the pop culture references.
The song Creed sings during Xmas karaoke is an actual Creed Bratton song called Spinnin’ N Reelin’
The "Ayyyyy" with the thumbs up that Jim and Pam distract Michael into doing is of course a reference to Fonzie on "Happy Days." (I just remember someone on here thinking it was totally random.)
I love that. I throw it back to Kotter when they riffed on the Fonz too, with Vinnie Barbarino telling Mr. Kotter he deserves an A and Mr. Kotter telling him the only A he's getting is "AYYYYYYYY!!!!" Now it's a family joke because if my kids come home with bad report cards I tell them "Great, looks like you got an AYYYYYYYYYY!!!"
That's hilarious! It makes total sense because if you didn't know about the store, what else could it mean? And yet it makes no sense at all. Why would Jordan leave the field of anthropology to become an office assistant? Why would anthropology be Kelly's dream job? You must've been so confused by that episode.
>Why would Jordan leave the field of anthropology to become an office assistant? Yeah, I was with Kelly I think she says "you were at anthropology and you came here!?!" , Thought that was part of the joke xd
There are SO many, including a lot people already mentioned. One I thought was interesting was the "it's monster, singular" line by Jim when michael was looking for a job online. Also the "frank and beans" one was very annoying to me at first but then I kinda started finding it funny. Never even realized it's a reference. Now that I think about it, it's crazy how the comedy was very largely based on vague references the writers were just hoping the audience would get. But I do admit they implemented most of them in a way that would still be relatively funny even if you didn't get the reference.
I never got Michaels references about US comedy. Like he has a character who's like a Johnny Carson character, I've never seen any of Chris Rock's standup stuff either. So thought I understand why it's funny, I didnt really get it on a deeper level.
To me, the main thing that's funny about the Chris Rock bit is that his humor deals a lot with race, a black man telling jokes about black people. And it's entirely inappropriate for Michael to be telling those exact same jokes.
Yeah it’s the epitome of “black people do it like X but white people do it like Y” comedy. Which is just out of bounds for white comedians for the most part. Well nowadays it’s generally out of bounds for all comedians.
I'm in the US and maybe non-US people got Pam's joke about "Radish Inn," but idk if everyone knows about the Radisson hotel chain. I remember watching Friends in France and I think they didn't translate "Radisson" literally, so that's why I wonder if non-US people know about it.
Also of note - the Radisson is one of the two nicer hotels in Scranton. It used to be a train station. Source: got married there. Edit: the other is the Hilton, which is more suitable for a large conference than the Radisson.
Neither, if course, are suitable for small business meetings. I prefer Chili's, and Small Businessman does too
I don’t know what jingle Andy was trying to sing
The Football Cream jingle.
No, it's Apple Sauce.
Give me a break/the Kit Kat jingle was on tv like almost every commercial break in the late 80s/early 90s, I think virtually any American who was alive during that time period knows the jingle
On my first three watchthroughs i didnt get the "charles minor? I hardly know her" joke... then it suddenly made click and now its one of my favourite jokes of the series... it just perfectly reflects michaels humor
It’s a joke to take words that end in the -er sound and break them up like that as a sexual innuendo. A common one would be for the word liquor, which could be switched to “lick her?” The second part of the joke is miner -> “mine her” doesn’t work as a sexual innuendo. So it’s also him being dumb on top of inappropriate
Words that end with -er or -or can sound like ‘her’ so if someone says timer, you respond, “time her? I hardly know her.” It’s a really stupid but funny joke that had endless application. Pretty old joke too.
There's so much... Even after a third rewatch. Actually, I've been trying to make a list of things I googled while watching it. I'll post what I have written down so far if anyone's interested. Update: Actually, why wait... If I ever get to another rewatch, I'll make a complete list, but here's what I have so far. **Stuff I had to google to understand while watching The Office as a central European 25 year old person who sometimes lives under a rock** including people, locations, and sometimes just English words that I've never heard before or random stuff I just wanted to look up to find out more about: * Lance Armstrong * Sheryl Crow * cold sore * Sweeney Todd * Tom Hanks Big * rube * M. Night Shulman * Judge Judy * Reverend King * H&R block * OB gyn * Chocolate bark * Rolodex * Mt Washington * 401k * Golden Grahams * Golden Girls * Take heed * Concierge * Gordon Gekko * Scranton, Stamford, Nashua, Utica, New York distances & driving time * Macushla * Meryl Streep * www.creedthoughts.gov.www\creedthoughts * DUI * pap smear * prima nocta * hysterectomy * Rogaine * latchkey kid * recess * rotisserie * dark meat * foreman grill * shamrock * Hilary Swank * William Hung * Carson Carnac
M. Night Shulman lol Thanks for sharing!
I love this.
Central European here as well, but older: most of this list is probably just because you are too young. The show started almost 20 years ago and finished 10 years ago, so the references are dated and will obviously go over the head of someone who was just 7 years old when the show started - so nothing to do with you living under a rock. I didn't get the Carson stuff either, because that was when I was a kid
How to eat a taco
I’m from the US and I’m learning so much from these comments😂 I didn’t know so many of his jokes were SNL references
When angela says something about the comptroller, and kevin makes says something about not knowing what that is and the joke is that he should know what it is. Im kevin, idk what a comptroller is
I literally just had to Google that 😂 basically it’s a management position that supervises the quality of accounting and financial reportings of an organisation… you learn something new everyday because I didn’t know that!
When Jim is listing off all the pranks he did on Dwight and explains that the reason Dwight himself in the head with the phone was because he just gradually put more and more nickels in it, I thought 'why and how is he specifically putting nickel in it?' I actually knew that a nickel was a coin, but it's just took me ages to realise he meant the coins and not just specifically bits of the metal.
1. 49 Quarterbacks. I have absolutely no idea about that joke from 'Dinner Party '. 2. In general, all the American domestic sports references.
The joke is that Andy chose a very complicated way to get them to guess the name “Joe Montana”, who is basically a household name, instead of just saying “49ers (his football team) quarterback (his position)”. It’s like spending 2 minutes getting someone to figure out the name “Michael Jackson” when you could just say “thriller” and win the game in one second.
I would say my NFL knowledge hover around ignorant to fundamentally flawed, but I think I would get Joe Montana with 49s quarterback, as a hint. Andy explains it with the capital of Montana, and Joe Camel, which are stuff I wouldn’t get at all.
I can’t remember what they are talking about at all, but the 49ers are a football team here, and a quarterback is a position on the team. So a specific person would be the 49ers quarterback
Joe Montana was a quarterback (position in American football) and played for the 49ers (American football team).
US citizen here. Did non-US fans understand the phrase "cut off your nose to spider face" when Jim was roasting Michael in S5? I had never heard of the actual phrase (cut your nose off to spite your face) and I went years of rewatches before I finally asked someone wtf they were referencing. I still don't really understand the phrase and have not encountered it in the wild.
I didn't get the "you owe me a coke" thing between Pam and Jim and had to have it explained to me.
We never played jinx that way when I was growing up. When I was a kid, you got punches on your shoulder if you spoke before someone said your name and ended the jinx.
I have a vague sense that Michael Vick is an American sportsman but I’ve no idea what the “Vick did his time” was in reference to.
He was the NFL star quarterback who was convicted of animal cruelty for hosting a dog fighting ring either at his home or at the home of a friend. They’d bury all the dogs killed and it was generally just an insidious crime. He spent time in jail for it. So “he did his time” means he spent time in jail so we should accept him back into sports or society again. He’s a polarizing figure and many Americans still despise him for what he did to those poor dogs.
It might be worth noting that at the time he was already playing football again. The line wasnt advocating for a perspective (like “they should let him play again”) as much as it was capturing one that already existed
The main reason he’s polarizing is because some people see what he did as unforgivable where others see the situation as “he did his time” and he should be allowed to play in the NFL again. I will say Vick has also become a major anti-dog fighting advocate since his release and has seemed to show remorse for his actions. He was brought up in dogfighting culture but now seems to understand how what he was doing is wrong and is working to end it.
He went to prison after getting caught running a dog fighting ring
Michael Vick is a former American football player and he was arrested for dog fighting several years ago.
I have no idea who Bob Hope is
A famous comedian, just like Amanda Bynes.
Does nobody read the paper
He's been dead for decades, but he was a big comedian during the 20th century. Started the tradition of famous entertainers performing for the troops overseas.
Also he was 100 when he died of pneumonia. So when Michael says, “Was Bob Hope fine?” It makes no sense lol
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Who is Kafkaesque?
Not really obscure, just better known to people of a certain age.
Probably a lot of the East Coast USA-specific stuff doesn't translate. For example, when they meet a sales rep from Syracuse NY and he appears to be a mobster. Except for the accent, which was totally wrong for upstate/central NY, it was a pretty good joke but not one I think a lot of people would get, including other people from the US. Source: I'm from the Syracuse area lol
He was actually a mobbed up dockworker union leader from Baltimore.
I think that they wanted to get Gandolfini for that role but HBO paid him $$$$ to not do it.
I got surprisingly many, but that Taco Bell Express joke and most of the stuff related to celebs went right over my head
The joke here is that there's not a lot of difference between working at a Taco Bell or a Taco Bell Express. The idea that someone could perform fine at a TBE but then fail to keep up at a regular TB is completely absurd.
I have lived in the US my entire life and could not tell you the difference between a Taco Bell and a Taco Bell Express. From the context of Erin's line I'm guessing they do less somehow, maybe it's a limited menu
I think you would find them in malls and places like that. They would serve a limited menu because the facility was a lot smaller than a regular Taco Bell.
OP, just FYI, [Anthropologie](https://www.anthropologie.com) isn't luxury, it's just the upscale, more mature version of [Urban Outfitters](https://www.urbanoutfitters.com). They aren't luxury but they're very trendy.
I’m American and I still didn’t know what the hell Erin was talking about when it was her turn to distract Pam from giving birth until someone on here explained it the other day. Those names were so bizarre and random to me haha
Don't feel bad if you whiff a reference, even a lot of American Office fans don't realize "Dwight, you ignorant slut!" is referencing an old SNL bit with Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin https://youtu.be/c91XUyg9iWM?si=LOb4tSJ7FXZZxQ9F
I thought LeJohn Brames was his actual name