“This is huge! That’s what she said,” began comedian and Office star B.J. Novak, performing before a sold-out show at Ryan Auditorium on Saturday night.
Fresh from the end of the writers’ strike, Novak gave the audience what it wanted: a solid dose of stand-up followed by an Office-related Q&A in the Tech lobby. Audience members came prepared to see Novak, who plays Ryan Howard on the show, with some dressing as Office characters or making customized T-shirts.
Novak-written Office moments:
Michael: Abraham Lincoln once said that if you’re a racist, I will attack you with the North, and those are the principles that I carry with me in the workplace. – “Diversity Day,”, Season 1, Episode 2
Michael: In the future, if I want to say something funny, or witty, or do an impression, I will no longer, ever, do any of those things.
Jim: Does that include, “that’s what she said”?
Michael: Mmm hmm, yes.
Jim: Wow, that is really hard. Do you really think you can go all day long?
Michael is trying to restrain himself.
Jim: Well, you always left me satisfied and smiling. So …
Michael: That’s what she said! – “Sexual Harassment,” Season 2, Episode 2
Dwight: Yes, I have decided to shun Andy Bernard for the next three years. Which I’m looking forward to. It’s an Amish technique. It’s like slapping someone with silence. I was shunned from the age of four until my sixth birthday for not saving the excess oil from a can of tuna. – “Safety Training,” Season 3, Episode 20
Novak read from a children’s book he wrote called “Wikipedia Brown,” which drew some of the biggest laughs of the night. Nostalgia was a major theme in his stand-up, as he touched upon characters such as Popeye, Carmen Sandiego and McGruff the Crime Dog.
Opening for Novak was Dan Mintz, former writer for Crank Yankers and The Andy Milonakis Show. His deadpan delivery was reminiscent of Todd Barry, Demetri Martin, or Mitch Hedberg, who Novak later listed as an inspiration. Mintz’s delivery, combined with a high, nasal voice, made jokes on topics such as the Holocaust and abortion easier to digest.
“For some reason, my voice makes it hard to be romantic,” Mintz said in his routine. “I’d say, ‘You look really pretty in the moonlight,’ [and she'd say] ‘Are you going to rape me?’” The second phrase was on the back of t-shirts Mintz said he would sell later.
After Mintz, Novak took the stage, performed bits with puppets, and threw away note cards with jokes that didn’t work. After a packed autograph signing, Novak took a few minutes away from visiting family members to chat with North by Northwestern.
NBN: You’ve performed at a few colleges recently. How’s it different to perform at a college rather than at a comedy club?
Novak: I like both, but it’s too good to be true to be at a college. You have the most intelligent, enthusiastic, captive audience you can have for comedy.
How did your experience at Harvard lead to where you are now?
Where I am now is mainly from stand-up, actually. I was doing stand-up at the Improv. I had been a writer, and I had written spec scripts, and I was trying to get hired as a writer. I was just starting to get hired as an actor based on my stand-up, for Punk’d, but [stand-up] is where Greg Daniels, who created the show, saw me. I didn’t do stand-up in college, I did stand-up after.
Has the writing staff of The Office come back yet?
Everybody’s back. We’ve been back two days, and I was able to come out here. I couldn’t miss it when I saw the trouble people went through to get tickets, and [I couldn't] let them down after that. I hope I lived up to their expectations. I was excited to come.
I heard that when the strike started, you guys were just starting to shoot an episode called “Dinner Party.” What can you tell us about that?
It’s fantastic. It’s kind of like a stage play in a way in that it’s so intense and contained, and there’s so much character comedy. I hope I’m not building it up too much, but it was very exciting. It was a slightly different kind of script for us, and we were so excited about it right before the break that we’ve been thinking about it the whole time. It’s an incredible showcase for all the actors.
Being a multi-hyphenate on the show, how is it writing for Ryan?
I like writing it with other people and I like when other people write it, even more than when I do. When someone else writes it, I think about it in new ways. When I wrote it myself, I only think about it the way I wrote it. There’s not that much to do. Be surprised as the temp, and be a would-be ruthless corporate raider as the boss.
Do you ever wish you could be a ridiculous one, like a Dwight or a Creed?
I feel he’s becoming more of that, and that’s very fun. He’s becoming more of an “Oh no, not that guy.” It’s definitely more fun to play, and it’s been more enjoyable than sort of being the straight man.
Office fans are a passionate group of people. Do you have any crazy fan stories?
My parents saw today, we passed someone on the street who asked for my picture. Then I had to go and prepare for the show, but [my parents] followed that group of people afterwards and heard them screaming and calling people. I guess I’m kind of used to it, but it was really fun for me to see other people see it. Because when you step back and think about it, it’s really crazy.
Did you come back to stand-up because you knew you were going to have some time off?
Well, the nice thing about stand-up is it’s always something you can do. It was the only silver lining of the strike to me, is that I got to do more stand-up. The whole time, on the plane there and back, they’d play The Office on the flight and I’d just miss it so much.
It must be surreal to know that your face is on a million airplane screens.
There are so many weird things about being on The Office, that it’s hard to keep track of it. Like people looking over at you thinking, “Are you the guy on the screen?”
Are you working on anything else besides The Office right now?
I’ve been daydreaming a lot about things I want to write or make, but now that I’m back at The Office all I can think about are Dwight or Angela or Creed or Toby.
We need more Toby. That’s my opinion.
Toby’s my favorite. [Paul Lieberstein] is the most magnificent actor; I don’t know how he does it. He was only a writer, and he was amazing. Paul was like, “I’m not an actor,” and we were like, “Then why are you acting so well?”
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers, actors and comedians? We have plenty on our campus.
Try to entertain your friends. That’s the best advice. A lot of people try to write or perform things that they think their teachers would like or something like that. But in fact, the things that truly entertain your best friends are the things that are most expressive of something new and much more worthwhile in the end.