Why did The Office hate the WNBA?
This isn't a deep dive but The Office really had it out for the WNBA
Hey folks, Ben Mock here. I know shit’s real rough right now but I hope you’re doing some sort of okay.
Let’s be honest, The Office was not great and it has not aged well. Out of 201 episodes, maybe 10% of them are genuinely worth watching? A lot of the humor is based on sexual harassment, like, a lot of the humor is just workplace sexual harassment. The show ran for nine seasons from 2005 to 2013 and was desperately flagging towards the end of its run, especially after the departure of Steve Carrell.
But I’m not here to write a retrospective on The Office. I’m here to write about a weird trend that I noticed while binging the show in the background over the last week.
The Office Season Seven
2011’s season seven was the beginning of the end for The Office. The show had been running for six years at this point and had all but drained the well of ideas for a workplace sitcom. By percentage, season seven had the lowest number of episodes whose A plot wasn’t about life at the office.
It’s also where I noticed this weird habit of shitting on the WNBA.
Threat Level Midnight
The season’s 17th episode was Threat Level Midnight, written by cast member B. J. Novak and airing on February 17th 2011. The majority of the episode is centred around the premiere of Michael’s terrible action movie ‘Threat Level Midnight’. The movie follows Agent Michael Scarn, a secret agent who has to save the NHL All-Star Game. In a shot towards the start of the movie establishing Michael Scarn, we see various newspaper clippings of all the pro sports all star games he has previously saved: NFL, MLB, NBA. Then the show goes out of its way to specify that he failed to save the WNBA all-star game.
This Reddit thread shows the newspaper clipping, as well as some totally original and top-tier humor about the WNBA. Just great. Love that humor.
Also, to the guy being like “pfft 22,000?” Just so we’re clear – if you’re going to mock the WNBA for not having fans or whatever, the NBA didn’t get 22,000 fans at its 2011 All Star Game.
Anywho, great joke about killing people at the WNBA All-Star Game or whatever.
But this could be just a one-off joke, right? People love to shit on the WNBA, I mean just look at Twitter.
But then…
The Inner Circle
Six episodes later we got The Inner Circle, written by Charlie Grandy and airing on May 5th 2011. It was the first episode following the departure of Michael Scott and focused on the first day of new manager DeAngelo Vickers, played by Will Ferrell. However, it quickly becomes apparent that DeAngelo is incredibly sexist. After the women in the office complain, DeAngelo gives a rambling speech about women, he asks Dwight for his opinion on the notion that men in the office are being given opportunities the women aren’t being offered. (Dwight being the show’s ‘crazy’ character that his actor Rainn Wilson called a ‘fascist nerd’ in DVD commentary). To this prompting, Dwight responds:
“What’s the argument here? NBA, WNBA. One is a sport; one is a joke. I love sports, I love jokes. Room for all.”
Yes, Dwight is horribly sexist. But from a meta standpoint, this is just such a wildly weird thing to include in your script?
It goes out of its way to specifically call the WNBA “a joke”.
Like, why do this.
Just why.
It’s not even funny. It’s just fucking weird.
I don’t know Charlie Grandy and I chose not to reach out to him for this piece. But like, what’s your problem with the WNBA my dude?
The WNBA in 2011
And you know what? The WNBA was fucking great in 2011.
Top three draft picks? Maya Moore, Liz Cambage, and Courtney Vandersloot.
The league picked up a marquee sponsor in Boost Mobile.
It was a hard-fought season that ended with the start of Lynx’s odd-year dynasty. Maya Moore dropped 21 points in her debut, which also served as the league’s season-opener.
Like seriously, the Lynx went 27-7 before seeing off Becky Hammon and the Silver Stars and Diani Taurasi and the Phoenix Mercury to reach their first WNBA Finals in franchise history. In fact, 2011 marked the first time that the Lynx won a playoff series. They did this thank to their white-hot roster, featuring a starting five of Taj McWilliams-Franklin, Rebekkah Brunson, Maya Moore, Seimone Augustus, and Lindsay Whalen.
Given the week that’s gone down, I don’t think anyone wants thousands of words on this but ya know, here’s the WNBA’s top 10 shots of the 2011 season:
TLDR
I dunno. I know it’s a stupid subpar workplace comedy but the fact that they just decided that the WNBA was a punchline that could be thrown in wherever they felt they needed it. Like it’s not just me right? It’s fucking weird that in two separate points in the same season, two separate writers were like “you know what, WNBA sucks punchline”
The WNBA is fucking great. End of.
Fuck the Office.
That’s all I got for you this week. Sorry it’s a little shorter than usual but ya know, this week has not been normal. If you’ve enjoy this, or any of my previous articles, be sure to subscribe. I’ll be back next week. Keep sporting and seriously, stay safe out there.
Hahah who is it you think your audience is exactly? The way you write all of this like it’s relatable is hilarious. I have no idea what bizarro world you live in where The Office is this obscure thing with some small cult fanbase, and the WNBA is this beloved smash hit that everyone wistfully remembers the 2011 glory years of, but it’s like, the mirror image of the reality I live in.
I can’t even imagine how strange it must be to try to carve out a career in something as obscure as being a independent sports writer of what is largely not unlike the World Series of Poker in terms of popularity, but it absolutely does not make you relatable. I fear your experience of “The Office” being meh and the WNBA being amazing is truly unique to you