The Office Updates a Fan-Favorite Scene

Even if you’ve never seen an episode of The Office, there’s a good chance that you’ve seen the “Parkour” scene in video, gif, or meme form. This opening from the season six premiere “Gossip” sees Michael Scott (Steve Carell), Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), and Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) trying to parkour across the office in increasingly hilarious and barely dangerous ways.

To celebrate the release of more extended “Superfan” episodes on Peacock, the official YouTube channel for The Office released an extended cut of this fan-favorite opening scene that has an entire extra minute of parkour shenanigans. We get to see Michael slam Jim’s (John Krasinski) laptop shut so that he can belly flop onto the conference table and whisper “parkour” directly into the camera. We get to see Michael try to parkour into an open elevator, miss his shot before the door closes, and then decides to bounce his body down the walls of the hallway to the stairwell.

After the three climb across the cars in the parking lot, they find a giant tire that they roll around for a bit before coming inside for a break. Instead of cutting directly to the three standing atop the Vance Refrigeration truck, the scene shows the trio taking a much needed water break. Dwight is sitting on top of the vending machines (because he’s that hardcore) and they are all drenched in sweat – props to the costume department for the realistic pit-stains throughout this scene. When they decide that their break is over, they roll across the break room tables and bump into an annoyed Stanley (Leslie David Baker) in the process.

According to the Office Ladies podcast via Mashable, the Parkour cold open became a classic moment on set too. When talking about these scenes, podcast co-host Jenna Fischer said “Paul [Lieberstein] reminded me that after we shot this cold open, do you remember this? Our camera assistants, Chris and Ed and some of the other crew guys would walk around the stage and shout ‘parkour’ from time to time. When he told me that, I was like, ‘Oh yes, I remember that. It would just be like, ‘parkour!'” Other podcast co-host Angela Kinsey also recalled that, just as Dwight yelled “parkour” while opening the fridge, people across the set would do the same thing. 

But what makes this cold open even better is knowing that there was no real choreography for it. In the podcast, Fisher says that the writer and director for the episode, Paul Lieberstein, told her that the only direction he gave to Steve Carell, Ed Helms, and Rainn Wilson was “just a basic route to move through so that the camera could capture everything,” and asking them to shout “parkour” after every movement, no matter how small or basic that movement was.

Even though the update doesn’t add any extra context to this cold open, it’s still a welcome surprise for fans who want an extra minute of laughter. This scene was already a top-tier moment from The Office, and now we have even more of it to enjoy.

The Office “superfan” episodes for season 1 through 6 are available to stream on Peacock now.