The story of the most brutally uncomfortable episode of The Office ever begins with a cute two-word phrase. Executive producer Paul Lieberstein came up with it, wrote it down on a notecard, and threw it onto the writers’ room idea pile. “‘Scott’s Tots,’” fellow Office staffer Lee Eisenberg says, “was just a notecard in a sea of notecards.” It didn’t take very much for Lieberstein—who also played one-man HR department Toby on the show—to sell his coworkers on his pitch, which wasn’t as innocent as it sounded: Dunder Mifflin regional manager Michael Scott promised a class of third graders that if they graduated from high school, he’d pay for their college tuition. A decade later, when the tots turned teens hold up their end of the bargain, a still-cash-strapped Michael has to break the news that he doesn’t have the money to make their dreams come true. Naturally, it goes horribly.
To this I say "absolute fucking nonsense". While it's a great idea in that OF COURSE Michael Scott would make a (sincere in his heart at the time) promise like that to a bunch of kids, it all falls apart when we're led to believe that in the 10 years between him making the promise & the eve of the kids graduating from high school NOBODY AT ANY POINT IN TIME CHECKED BACK IN TO MAKE SURE THIS WAS STILL HAPPENING??!!? For 10 years, all these kids' parents just assumed Michael's off-hand promise was set in stone and they could plan accordingly when it came to any financial planning? Really??????? Every time I see it, it's fucking dumber and dumber; its very ridiculousness negates any attempt at cringe-humor.
The real gold medal winner in the cringe department is of course The Dinner Party, and the genius of its cringe-inducing awfulness is that not only is a scenario like that POSSIBLE in real life but it most assuredly is happening somewhere with somebody right now!!!
Ugh. These people. Exhausting.
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