It Worked!

After reading the recent Tad Friend homage to NBC's version of The Office in The New Yorker, I was reminded of the early skepticism and nervous fretting surrounding this show. Few thought it would work. I was skeptical, too, but hopeful because I really loved Steve Carell. And it worked! Here are two early stories about the show from The New York Observer.

Is NBC's The Office Too Prickly for Primetime?

Both Mr. Daniels and Mr. Gervais recognized that Michael Scott shares a crucial trait with Homer Simpson.

“He is resistant to learning,” observed Mr. Daniels. The Michael Scott character “could have learned after the pilot, but he was blind to it because it said so much about how his life wasn’t going the way he wanted it to …. Homer doesn’t learn. Isn’t that wonderful for comedy? A lack of self-knowledge.”

A Profile of Steve Carell

He can do smarmy, too. In May 2001, he did a Daily Show special with Stephen Colbert called "Steve Carell Salutes Steve Carell, Hosted by Steve Carell." The two tuxedoed Steves sang a finger-snapping Broadway duet. Sang Mr. Carell: "How do I do it? / I suppose I'll never know / Just give into it / And our love for me will grow!"