| "Cafe Disco" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| The Office episode | |||
| Episodeno. | Season 5 Episode 27 | ||
| Directed by | Randall Einhorn | ||
| Written by | |||
| Featured music |
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| Cinematography by | Matt Sohn | ||
| Editing by | Stuart Bass | ||
| Production code | 527 | ||
| Original air date | May 7, 2009 (2009-05-07) | ||
| Guest appearances | |||
| Episode chronology | |||
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| The Office(American season 5) | |||
| List of episodes | |||
"Cafe Disco" is the twenty-seventh and penultimate episode of the fifth season of the American comedy television seriesThe Office and the 99th overall episode of the series. It originally aired onNBC in the United States on May 7, 2009. Feeling the office is overworked after the recent reign of Charles Miner,Michael sets up a "cafe disco" in his old Michael Scott Paper Company office. Phyllis injures her back dancing at the cafe disco and bonds with Dwight as he tries to relieve her back. Meanwhile, Jim and Pam plan to elope.
The episode was written byWarren Lieberstein andHalsted Sullivan and directed byRandall Einhorn. Several songs are featured in the episode, including "Car Wash" byRose Royce, "Cat People" byDavid Bowie, "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" byC+C Music Factory and "Y.M.C.A." byVillage People. The episode received generally positive reviews and, according toNielsen ratings, was watched by 7.71 million viewers during its original broadcast.
Michael Scott still has his lease on the closet he used as the office space for theMichael Scott Paper Company. Concerned that the office is still tense from the recent management byDunder Mifflin vice presidentCharles Miner, Michael decides to convert the closet into a dance hall called Cafe Disco for his employees to socialize, drink coffee and dance. None of the employees care to join him (with the brief exceptions ofErin Hannon, who initially came in to turn in forms, andKevin Malone, who was eventually forced to leave), much to the disappointment of Michael, who then plays "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" through the ventilation system to try tempting them to come.
Following this,Phyllis Vance ultimately gives in and joins Michael; she stops in to invite her husbandBob Vance but his secretary, who resembles Phyllis, tells her Bob is not available, making Phyllis jealous. In Cafe Disco, Phyllis throws out her back after dancing too hard.Dwight Schrute brings her into the conference room and starts giving her a kind of massage he usually gives injured horses. The two spend a long amount of time together and she eventually confides in Dwight that she fears her husband is having an affair with his new secretary, but the two laugh together when Phyllis realizes how ridiculous the idea sounds.
When the rest of the office is told of Phyllis' injury, they take this as confirmation that the Cafe Disco is a bad idea and reprimand Michael for what happened to Phyllis. Disappointed and angry, Michael instructs Erin to close up the Cafe Disco.Kelly Kapoor comes down with her and the two start dancing after Erin turns on the stereo. This catches the eye of two male employees from Vance Refrigeration, and soon Cafe Disco is full of both Dunder Mifflin employees and non-employees, much to Michael's delight.Oscar Martinez is mildly baffled that Erin actually invited one of her friends to come, as opposed to being ashamed of the office. Kelly andAndy Bernard get into a competitive dance-off with each other, and Kevin makes out in the corner with his girlfriend Lynne.
Meanwhile,Jim Halpert andPam Beesly have decided to avoid the expense and stress of a wedding and elope to a simple courthouse ceremony inYoungstown, Ohio without letting their co-workers know. Pam comes to work with a wedding dress and Jim picks up flowers in the office parking lot. As they are leaving, they decide to stop in at Cafe Disco, and end up having a lot of fun, making them decide they really want an actual wedding ceremony after all. Phyllis eventually recovers and dances with Bob in the Cafe Disco. Michael tries to encourageAngela Martin to dance, but she refuses because she does not like "the general spirit of music." When Angela starts softly shaking her foot to the beat, however, Michael is extremely satisfied with the small victory. At the end of the episode, an extremely nervous Andy gets his ear pierced by Kelly with a pin in the bathroom.
"Essentially Michael has another terrible idea on how to let off some steam in the office and the concept of a café disco emerges, which is a dancing situation that involves coffee. I'm not a good dancer, but I try really, really hard, and I'm not talking about Andy Bernard, I'm talking about Ed Helms."
"Cafe Disco" was written byWarren Lieberstein andHalsted Sullivan and directed byRandall Einhorn.The Office writersGene Stupnitsky andLee Eisenberg appear in cameos as Vance Refrigeration employees who attend the Cafe Disco dance after spotting Kelly and Erin dancing together.[2] Ed Helms, who describes himself as a poor dancer, said he found the dancing scenes very challenging and that he was very sore by the end of the filming.[1]
The official website forThe Office included four cut scenes from "Cafe Disco" within a week of its original release. In the first 80-second clip, Kevin meets Lynne in the elevator, where he tells her she smells like bacon, and says "I love the smell of bacon in the morning." Later, he invites Lynne to Cafe Disco.[3] In the second, 47-second clip, Michael insists he will not let the fun stop in the office, and tells the story of his grandfather, who he said was the most fun person until he was changed by his job.[4] In the third, 30-second clip, Dwight talks to Phyllis about his experience in his high school girls' softball team, which he was able to join due to the "landmark"Pennsylvania Supreme Court case, "Shrute vs.Lackawanna County Board of Education".[5] In the final, 30-second-clip, Dwight tells the documentary crew about his hatred forOhio, the home of his cousin Amel, who he says should be kicked in the "groin area" because he's a "cheat and a ball hog."[6]
The episode features the songs "Car Wash" byRose Royce, "Cat People" byDavid Bowie, "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" byC+C Music Factory, "Y.M.C.A." byVillage People, "Boy Hangover" written by Lester Lewis, sung byBonnie McKee, "I'll Do You like a Truck" by Geo da Silva, "Climb on Board The Train" by Destination Soul, "Pimpin'" by Tian & Styliztic, "Whiplash" by Image, and "Various Disgraces" by The Blam.[7]
During their dance competition, Andy does a dance involving a chair from the music video of theMadonna song "Vogue", and Kelly does a reenactment of the silhouette chair dance from the 1983 romance filmFlashdance,[8] which inspired elements of a dance done by actressVanessa Ferlito in the 2007Quentin Tarantino filmDeath Proof.[9] Jim and Pam plan to drive toYoungstown, a city inMahoning County,Ohio, to get married in a courthouse.[2][10] Dwight does an impression of actorJack Nicholson's characterJack Torrance from the 1980Stanley Kubrick filmThe Shining.[2] Michael likens the positive office atmosphere to that ofDave & Buster's, a restaurant and entertainment business. To signify the care-free atmosphere of Cafe Disco, Michael hangs on the wall alei, aHawaiian flower necklace. When his Cafe Disco idea is initially rejected, Michael says he can understand how it felt to be the tobacco companyPhilip Morris.[11]
"Cafe Disco" includes several callbacks to previousThe Office episodes. Michael blamesCharles Miner, the new Dunder Mifflin vice president, for the poor atmosphere around the office; Charles was the antagonist of a recent six-episode story arc revolving around Michael's defection from Dunder Mifflin to the Michael Scott Paper Company.[2][8] The office space used for Cafe Disco is the old Michael Scott Paper Company office space previously featured in the episodes "Michael Scott Paper Company", "Heavy Competition" and "Broke".[2] The episode features Lynne (Lisa K. Wyatt) as Kevin's date at the dance; Lynne was introduced in "Blood Drive", the fifth season'sValentine's Day episode, where the two meet at an office singles party. Television reviewers also compared the bonding between Dwight and Phyllis in "Cafe Disco" as a throwback to "Crime Aid", an episode earlier in the season, in which Phyllis tries to console a saddened Dwight in the wake of Andy and Angela's engagement.[12]
In its original American broadcast on May 7, 2009, "Cafe Disco" was watched by 7.71 million viewers, according toNielsen ratings, an increase from the previous week. The episode received a 4.5 rating/14 share among viewers aged between 18 and 34, and a 3.8 rating/11 share among viewers between 18 and 49.[13] The episode outperformed the 3.5 rating/9 share ofCBS' crime drama seriesCSI: Crime Scene Investigation in the 18—49 category.[13][14]The Office creatorGreg Daniels said he was particularly proud of this, especially in light of the series' upcoming 100th episode, "Company Picnic"; Daniels said of beatingCSI, "Who would have thought that when we aired for the first time?"
The episode received generally positive reviews. Margaret Lyons ofEntertainment Weekly praised the episode, comparing it positively to previous episodes "Casino Night" and "Booze Cruise": "not as heavy or emotional, certainly, but still a chance to see our Dunderheads in a charming and demonstrative not-quite-work environment." Lyons also complimented a number of changes in the series the episode seemed to indicate, including shifting allegiances, goodwill where there used to be bad and a possible budding romance between Andy and Kelly.[2] Alan Sepinwall, television journalist withThe Star-Ledger, said the episode, "started off seeming like a dumb and pointless idea before gradually revealing itself to be a fun, and even welcome, diversion." Sepinwall said the episode was not as funny as other recent ones, but that he enjoyed seeing the characters interact this way together, and particularly liked seeing Dwight and Phyllis bond, "even as he treated her like a racehorse".[12] Josh McAuliffe ofThe Times-Tribune inScranton,Pennsylvania, described the episode as "a wacky and wonderful little gem, one of those rare ones where it was just wall-to-wall happy, giddy fun, with not a drop of pathos, except for maybe Michael whining about having to eat lunch by himself." McAuliffe also said he was glad to see Erin's "cheerful, appealingly goofy personality" continue to emerge.[10]
Nathin Rabin ofThe A.V. Club said the episode made him feel "borderline euphoric", and said of it, "With a light touch the show made an insightful point—that we need our dance-offs and workday discos and spontaneous expressions of delight."[11] Travis Fickett ofIGN said the episode had "an infectious sense of fun" and felt as if the show producers "just turned the camera on the cast's wrap party and let it roll a while". However, Fickett also said very little actually happened in the episode, which he said felt "mostly like filler" between the recently finished Michael Scott Paper Company arc and the following week's season finale, "Company Picnic".[8]New York magazine writer Will Leitch also said the episode felt lighter than recent episodes, but he said, "that’s okay: They’ve earned a week off, and they sure seem to be having a lot of fun." He particularly praised the competition between Andy and Kelly, and Michael's dancing: "There are few funnier dancers than Steve Carell, particularly Steve Carell amped on coffee."[9] Andy Shaw ofTV Fodder said the episode allowed the entire cast to shine and included great chemistry between Phyllis Smith and Rainn Wilson. He also said he was glad to see Ellie Kemper get more screen time, "and not just because she's Office eye candy. She adds some freshness to the cast, as she's the only person at Dunder Mifflin right now who doesn't really know anything about all the drama and backstory, so she just takes Michael and everyone else for face value."[15] Kelly West ofCinema Blend described "Cafe Disco" as "one of the most random episodes ofThe Office."[16]
"Cafe Disco" was voted the seventh highest-rated episode out of 26 from the fifth season, according to an episode poll at the fansiteOfficeTally; the episode was rated 8.49 out of 10.[17]
