Controversial The Office joke banned from TV for 17 years resurfaces
The Office US fans have been left surprised to learn about a controversial scene in a 2009 episode of the hit sitcom that's been removed from most platforms.
The American version on the popular British TV show, which was penned by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, premiered in 2005.
While the original English show only ran for two seasons, the US version (starring the likes of Steve Carrell and John Krasinski) went on for nine successful seasons.
Of course some of the jokes on The Office haven't aged amazingly. Even Rainn Wilson, who starred as the Dwight Schrute on the show, admitted earlier this year that he doesn't think the program could be made today.
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But there's one scene in particular that caused so much backlash when it aired that it ultimately had to be removed from reruns, streams, and DVDs.
The scene in question is in the 2009 episode called 'Koi Pond' and is set around Halloween.
Michael Scott (Carrell's character) makes the Dunder Mifflin warehouse into a haunted house, which a group of kids were invited to come to.
As I'm sure you can imagine, the house is pretty underwhelming and the children don't appear to be scared – that's until Michael's final moment.
In front of all the kids, Michael is revealed dangling down from a fake rope pretending he was hanging himself.
He then states: "Kids, just remember, suicide is never the answer, alright?"
The scene went on to cause an outcry from viewers, which is why it ended up being edited out.
While it's still unavailable to watch on platforms like Netflix, a page called @DunderMifflinAS reshared it on October 21.
The post read: "The infamous banned Halloween cold open from The Office that you won’t find on @peacock or @netflix. Michael Scott really had no boundaries."
"Holy [expletive] I was not expecting that ending," one person said of the two minute-long video.
A second commented: "Michael’s rope stunt in front of children is genuinely disturbing; the joke lands as reckless rather than edgy, which makes its removal from streaming pretty understandable."
A different person added: "I’ll admit. I didn’t think it was gon' be that bad. But damn that was crazy."
However, others didn't think it was that bad and questioned if it really needed to be edited out.
Caryn Zucker, who was married at the time to then-president and CEO of NBCUniversal Jeff Zucker, was reportedly the one who encouraged the network to edit it out. Caryn worked in suicide prevention and advised that it was removed, a producer who spoke to the AV Club on the condition of anonymity said back in 2019.
Afterwards the episode was 're-cut and re-delivered, with the original HD-SR delivery masters collected back from NBC and thrown into deep storage'.
Topics: Streaming, Film and TV, The Office, Halloween
Niamh Shackleton