‘The Office’ stars B.J. Novak, Jenna Fischer, and Angela Kinsey revisit the cringe of ‘Scott’s Tots’

It’s a universally known truth amongst Office fans: “Scott’s Tots” is cringeworthy as hell.

On the latest episode of Stitcher’s Office Ladies podcast, former co-stars Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey chatted all about the painful Season 6 episode with director B.J. Novak, who was also a writer on the show and starred as Ryan Howard.

In case you’ve (understandably) blocked the premise of “Scott’s Tots” from your mind, let us quickly refresh. Ten years have passed since Michel made a huge promise to a group of 15 elementary school students. Assuming he’d be rich in the future, he told them all he’d pay for their college tuition if they graduated high school. Welp, they’re all graduating, and Michael can’t actually fund their education, so he has to break the news to them. But don’t worry, he offers everyone lithium laptop batteries to make up for it. AHH!!!! Just thinking about it hurts.

“Scott’s Tots” was actually Novak’s directorial debut (aside from Office webinars), which made him a perfect person to look back on all the cringe.

“Just so we get clear, did you bring me on to answer for ‘Scott’s Tots’? To apologize?” Novak asked to kick off the convo. His pals lightheartedly assured him they didn’t. They just wanted to talk. But Fischer did ask if he knew at the time that he was directing what would become the cringiest episode of The Office.

“I had no idea. It seemed great. You know, I was assigned the script, loved it, and it was only much later…. I think it’s a sign of how deep into the show I was, or we all were, that we did not have a foot in the real world. Not that that was an unrealistic episode…that’s exactly what Michael would do. That’s exactly what Michael would feel,” Novak said. “I also think that we can talk about it creatively. It makes a lot of sense to me. I don’t know if people are responding to — it seems like no one’s responding to it saying, ‘It’s a bad episode’ or ‘Michael wouldn’t do that.’ It’s more just like, ‘It’s so hard to watch.’ So it is consistent, I think, with the show.”

Novak explained that though the episode is a tough watch, the key to the story was that “Michael was so sure that he would be successful; that he could make this promise.”

“To me it’s not about the lie. It’s not about what ended up being a lie or a broken promise,” Novak explained. “It’s Michael — he got carried away with his generosity, with his belief in himself. I mean, maybe this is what people cringe about. It’s a very, very lovable version of Michael Scott, as well as a heartbreaking version of Michael Scott. And it’s sort of the whole series in an incredibly distilled, uncomfortable way from the Michael Scott point of view when you look at it like that.”

B.J. Novak, Prince of Darkness?

While “Scott’s Tots” was written by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, Novak did have a huge role as director, and Fischer noted that he also wrote some of the show’s other cringiest episodes, including “Prince Family Paper,” “Diversity Day,” “Sexual Harassment,” and “Chair Model.” The three recalled the latter episode, in which Michael falls in love with a chair model in a magazine only to discover she’s dead. He and Dwight then go to the woman’s grave to pay their respects and mourn her loss.

“Paul Lieberstein wrote a lot. I love that episode. Paul is the source of the darkness on that one,” Novak explained. “And look, I wrote a lot of very joyous stuff, too. I wrote a lot of the Jim and Pam. I wrote ‘Threat Level Midnight,’ which is a very joyful episode. So I’m not — it’s not like I’m the Prince of Darkness on this show. And also, look, there were what? How many hundred episodes? I worked on like more than half of them. So it’s not…. I’m not just this dark figure. I’m proud of it.”

Kinsey then joked that the Mashable article that would come out after this episode should be titled “B.J. Novak, Prince of Darkness of The Office.” It’s a stunning headline, but we needed to get “Scott’s Tots” in there for search purposes. Plus, Novak’s admittedly less dark now, and though he wrote several other dark episodes, many do consider this to be the darkest. So he’s spared the title. It seems he’s more like the Temp of Darkness. 😏

“I think the dark is important, and I remember after Season 1, which was six episodes, and I think all of them ended pretty darkly, right? I mean, we had that nice moment at the end of ‘Diversity Day,’ but the pilot, ‘Hot Girl,’ ‘Healthcare’ — extremely dark,” Novak said. “‘Office Olympics’ and ‘Basketball’ maybe were a little more positive endings. But we had sort of a big group meeting that Greg [Daniels, show runner] led about, ‘OK, what are we going to do differently in Season 2?’ And there’s a lot different. And one of [the things] was three out of four endings should be positive. And then one is just for us, meaning Paul. He was like, ‘We’re not going to totally sell out.’ But the British [version] had ended dark every time, more or less, and we had been ending dark every time, more or less. And so I guess ‘Scott’s Tots’ was definitely one of those [ones for us].”

Though Novak agrees that the episode is “very difficult,” he regards Stupnitsky and Eisenberg as “two of the most brilliant writers” and “the backbone of the show.” He also feels “Scott’s Tots” is an interesting, deep look at Michael Scott’s pure motivations.

“He is such a believer, you know? And so his belief got ahead of him. And this is by far, you know…this is the biggest consequence of all,” Novak said. He then references this Michael quote from the episode: “I’ve made some empty promises in my life, but hands down, that was the most generous.”

“That is sort of this incredible distillation of why we love Michael so much and why he’s made everyone’s life so impossibly difficult, which is sort of the heart and the comedy of the series. But it’s not usually that intense, you know?” he said. 

Be sure to check out the full podcast episode to hear more behind-the-scenes stories about filming the episode, “Scott’s Tots,” along with directing advice, acting advice, and info on Novak’s new film, Vengeance.

You can stream episodes of The Office on Peacock and follow along with the podcast every week on Earwolf, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.