The Office found worldwide fame and critical acclaim for being an iconic piece of television, which ran for 8 years. Mike Schur, who is credited with being the writer for The Office, went on to create bigger and better projects like The Good Place and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
However, Mike Schur also served as one of the writers of Saturday Night Live, and after The Office had found worldwide acclaim, a parody sketch of the American show was created and shared on YouTube. The sketch had American stars portraying famous characters from The Office, but the only thing was that they were speaking Japanese and eating ramen!
Mike Schur hated The Office SNL Parody
Saturday Night Live has been running on television since 1975, and they frequently do parodies of famous pop culture events and shows that have been gaining the attention of the world.
When The Office was at its peak, Saturday Night Live decided to release a parody of the show with American actors speaking Japanese, and they dubbed it “The Japanese Office”. Steve Carell reprised his role as Michael Scott in the parody, and all the Japanese elements were put in the short comedy video.
Although there is a laughter soundtrack in the background, series creator Mike Schur didn’t find it funny when he watched it because it seemed very weird to him. During his talks on The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers’ Podcast, here’s what Mike Schur said about the parody.
It didn’t scratch the itch of reflecting [‘The Office’] in the way that I was hoping the show would be reflected somehow. It didn’t feel right to me in some way.
He continued,
It’s like, ‘They stole the show from me, but I stole it from the Japanese version,’ but then all the actors in the Japanese version are white people. It sort of didn’t track to me somehow.
The Saturday Night Live episode that featured the The Office parody was hosted by Ricky Gervais, and even he admitted that “It’s funny ’cause it’s racist” (via Variety).
Although it was a racist parody of an iconic show, the world saw the potential in one iconic actor who could have replaced Rainn Wilson’s Dwight Schrute if he were given a chance. Known for his comedy sketches, the actor who portrayed the role of Dwight Schrute in the SNL parody was none other than Bill Hader.
Bill Hader would have made a good Dwight Schrute
For those of you who might not know, Bill Hader is an iconic comedian who has also been a part of Hollywood with several iconic projects to his name, notably: It Chapter Two, Superbad, and Barry.
In the clip above, Bill Hader could be seen portraying the role of Dwight Schrute in the SNL parody. However, his tone, expressions, and even the wig contributed to this overt character who was trying to be dead serious and good at his job.
Hader yelling “baka (馬鹿)” (meaning idiot in Japanese) with all the anger he could muster definitely felt funny. Later, when Steve Carell’s Michael Scott appears out of his cabin, Hader starts bowing to him and greeting him.
These instances were observed from a 2-minute clip, but it was enough to see that if Bill Hader had been given the opportunity, he’d have made an amazing portrayal of Dwight Schrute in Mike Schur’s The Office, which ran for a total of 9 seasons and became a global pop-cultural phenomenon.
The Office currently stands at a rating of 9/10 on IMDb and 81% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Office is available to stream on Peacock (USA).
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
