The Office Blooper So Funny John Krasinski Finally Just Gave Up and Walked Away
Remembering the holiday episode that had the entire cast of The Office laughing hysterically.
Over the course of 9 seasons and more than 200 episodes, The Office proved to be one of the funniest destinations on television. The series invited us, through a fictional documentary format, into the lives of the Scranton employees of Dunder Mifflin Paper.
The series cuts between “live” interactions and talking head interviews, providing additional context into the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the characters. When something weird, wacky, or funny happened (a common occurrence), the camera would regularly cut to individual employees for their candid reactions. It was so common that Jim (John Krasinski) smirking into the camera became a meme unto itself.
But there was one episode in particular where the cast just couldn’t keep from breaking character. When filming the Season 6 episode "Secret Santa," Krasinski had to bow out of a certain scene completely because he couldn’t keep from busting a gut. He told the story in a 2023 installment of Wired’s “Answering the Internet’s Most Searched Questions” segment, alongside Jack Ryan co-star Michael Kelly.
The time John Krasinski and the rest couldn't stop laughing on the set of The Office
It’s Christmas in Scranton and time for some holiday shenanigans. Andy (Ed Helms) is giving Erin (Ellie Kemper) the 12 Days of Christmas for secret Santa, and it’s making her life a living hell. Her cat killed a turtle dove and the French hens are pulling out her hair to make their nests. There’s a pair of massive scratches across her face and she’s begging her secret Santa to stop. Phyllis (Phyllis Smith) arrives dressed in a Santa suit.
"I have been wanting to be Santa for years,” Phyllis says. “I believe I have the right temperament and the figure to do the job well."
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Michael (Steve Carell) has never allowed it, reserving the role of Santa Claus for himself, but now that Jim is co-manager, all bets are off. Of course, Michael doesn’t take the news well and stages a Christmas coup. He sets up a competing Santa station and invites Kevin (Brian Baumgartner) to sit on his lap. That’s when everything goes haywire.
"The hardest I've ever laughed in my life is the Christmas episode where Steve pretends to be Santa and asks Brian Baumgartner who plays Kevin to sit on his lap. And as soon as Steve said, 'what would you like, little boy?' and he lost all the air in his body when Brian sat on him, I've never laughed harder in my life," Krasinski said, "and if you're a fan of the show, you know that they used to just swing pan to Jim for a reaction and I looked over to the cameraman I said 'don't even try it, I will not be here.'"
Kevin takes his time thinking through his Christmas wish list saying, “I didn’t know. Nobody’s ever let me sit on their lap before.” Kelly (Mindy Kaling) can be seen cracking up in the background while Andy and Ryan (B.J. Novak) carry expressions of deep concern. Krasinski, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found. In the Superfan extended cut, you can see Helms losing it as he tries to hide from the camera behind a wall.
In an episode of the Office Ladies podcast, series stars Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer (who played Angela and Pam, respectively) recounted their memories of the scene.
"I would say overwhelmingly this was one time where the entire cast broke. The entire cast," Kinsey said. "I've read so many interviews in prepping for this episode where John, Ed, and Brian all talk about how they were all breaking. I read where Veda [Semarne], our script supervisor, said how she would have to mark whenever someone laughed in a take, and it was like everyone."
"They didn't have any footage of us not laughing," Fischer said. "They didn't have any. We never got it. That's why all the footage shows us breaking in the background."
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Breaking character to laugh was a fairly common occurrence on set, though not usually to this extreme. During production of the first season, when no one could have imagined what The Office would become, Krasinski recalled thinking, “this is going to be one of the funniest things that’s ever been recorded on television. Too bad no one will see it.”
That might be the funniest thing John Krasinski has ever said.
Catch the complete series of The Office and the extended Superfan cuts, streaming right now on Peacock! Plus stick around on Peacock later this year for the premiere of The Paper, a new series set within the universe of The Office.
