February 10, 2012

Shows On Other Shows - SNL on The Office

Today we start a new recurring segment called "Shows On Other Shows" where we talk about when one show is mentioned or referred to on another show.  In this case, we're talking about Saturday Night Live on The Office.  Michael Scott is a big fan of comedy, and he loves Saturday Night Live.  Even if he doesn't talk about the show too much, he very often refers to characters or sketches from SNL.

In the season 3 episode "The Merger", Michael and Dwight make a video to welcome the new members of the office to Scranton.  The video is a music video for a song he wrote called "Lazy Scranton", which is a parody of the SNL Digital Short "Lazy Sunday".


Michael especially loves to dress up as SNL characters for Halloween.  In the season 6 episode "Koi Pond",  the gang turn the warehouse into a haunted house.  Michael decides to dress up as one of the guys from the SNL Digital Short "D*ck in a Box"


The following year, in the Season 7 episode "Costume Contest", Michael dresses up as the SNL character MacGruber for Halloween, and even tricks Gabe into cuing his catchphrase.

While those are the most obvious SNL references on The Office, there are many other more subtle references (for which I cannot find videos of online).  For example, in the season 5 episode "Lecture Circuit Part 2", Michael travels to Utica to talk to Holly to get some closure on their relationship.  When he gets there, he discovers that she's not there, but when he goes over to her desk he notices that the desktop wallpaper on her computer is of Martin Short's SNL character Ed Grimley.  This makes him smile, because he realized that they both love SNL, and that they really belong together.

Lecture Circuit Part 2 - the-office

And back in season 1 in just the 3rd episode of the show "Health Insurance", Michael sees Pam and says "Pam! Pamela! Pamalama-ding-dong. Making copies" (despite the fact that she wasn't making copies), a reference to the popular Rob Schneider SNL sketch.

Those are all of the SNL references I can think of on The Office, but I'll be sure to update if I think of any others.  Feel free to comment and let us know if we missed any!

1 comment:

  1. Wow. I love these especially the lazy scranton one. And don't forget about the "office" parody's on SNL like in Rainn Wilson's 2007 monologue and the "Japanese Office" skit.

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