50 Subtle Details From "The Office" That Prove It's One Of The Smartest Shows Of All Time

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Michael tries to sell his broken "plasma screen TV" at a garage sale seasons later.

1. Dunder Mifflin has won the Rain Forest Harvester's Association's "One Million Cut Trees Award."

2. You can see Michael's face when he infiltrates Jim and David Wallace's meeting inside the cart.

3. Stanley's New Year's resolution is: "Be a better husband and boyfriend."

Stanelys resolution written on a note card put on a board

4. The George Foreman grill that Michael burns his foot on in Season 2 — because he likes to wake up to the smell of bacon — appears in the Season 4 episode "Dinner Party."

Michael says, "Today, I got up, I stepped onto the grill and it clamped down on my foot, that's it," and then we see the grill in the episode "Dinner Party"

5. When Roy becomes furious and violent inside the bar, Kevin is fully prepared to protect Pam.

Here he is:

6. The Schrute Farms flag has only fifteen stars, which is consistent with the make up of the US when Schrute Farms was established.

7. Michael says that he is separating the trash into "whites and colors" for recycling. In an earlier season, you can see that Dunder Mifflin Scranton has different recycling bins for whites and colors.

8. The big board in the office is filled with "colorful hooey."

9. Michael writes a note telling Oscar to meet him before lunch, but he puts the note in Oscar's sandwich, which he obviously wouldn't get to until lunch.

10. One item at the garage sale is the stuck-to-the-wall painting from when Jim buys Pam their house. So they finally got it off the wall.

The painting on the wall is in the garage sale later

11. Michael swallows his toothpaste.

12. During Pam and Jim's tour of Michael's condo in "Dinner Party," pop art of Jan is visible on the wall.

There's popart of Jan

14. Michael has an Italian flag on his desk for St. Patrick's Day.

Arrow pointing to flag

15. Also for St. Patrick's Day, the water in the office watercooler is green.

Arrow pointing to green water in watercooler behind Stanley Hudson

16. After Michael drives his car into a lake, he opens the door to let the camera operator out.

17. Dwight tells us a very ominous Schrute wedding tradition, and he and Angela do it when they get married seasons later.

Dwight says, "The Schrutes have their own traditions, we usually marry standing in our own graves, makes the funerals very romantic, but the weddings are a bleak affair," and then we see that's how Angela and Dwight get married

18. Michael, Dwight, and Jim drive to the Utica branch, and Michael and Dwight try to steal the copier. Later, in Season 5, it's clear that the Utica copier is padlocked.

The copier is padlocked

19. Andy dresses like Dwight – the then acting manager – in order to become the Number 2 person in the office.

20. This one isn't suuuuuuuper subtle, but Angela's babies-as-adults poster that Oscar hates — and complains about to Toby — was, in fact, a Christmas gift from Toby.

Kelly holds the poster and Toby says "Well, it's for Angela," Angela says "I'll take the poster," then in a later episode Toby says, "There's just a little dispute over a poster in their workspace"

21. When Creed translates a bottle for Andy, he reads, "Do not consume with alcohol," which Andy does, and then gets sick.

22. When Jan hands Michael their relationship-disclosing agreement for the company, he says he's going to frame it. He does.

Jan says, "You get a copy, I get a copy, and a third copy goes to HR," Michael says, "Awesome, I'm gonna frame mine, I could frame yours, too" and later we see Michael's framed contract

23. Dwight and Kevin absolutely love fireworks in Season 2, and they're outraged by a potential lack of firecrackers in Season 6.

Dwight and Kevin play with firecrackers, and then later Jim says, "This is a firecracker-free wedding," and Kevin says "What the hell," and Dwight says, "Come on, you've got to be kidding me."

24. After Michael puts his face into the cement outside, there is some cement above one of his ears.

Arrow pointing to cement above Michael's ear

25. Pam uses the teapot Jim gave her for Christmas much later in the Finer Things Club.

The teapot highlighted in different scenes, seasons apart

26. "Here Comes Treble" is Andy's gamer tag.

27. And Karen's name is "KarentheJimSlayer."

28. Michael wears the same tie in multiple Christmas episodes.

29. The Michael Scott Paper Company printer is the old Dunder Mifflin printer.

30. Jan and Michael have enough wine glasses for everyone to have two at the dinner party, even though Dwight was told that one of the reasons he couldn't come was a deficit of wine glasses.

31. The lawyer Michael hires in Season 2 is the same lawyer Michael mentions when he and Dwight throw a watermelon off the roof and it hits a car in Season 3.

Michael says, "This is my lawyer, James P Albini," then in Season 3 he says, "Find out whose car that is, if it's Stanley's, call the offices of James P Albini, see if he handles hate crimes"

32. Kevin brings a ski mask on the booze cruise because Michael told him to.

33. Turns out Dwight gets a chair just like the one he adores at David Wallace's house.

34. When Michael falls down the stairs while running after Pam, he has a bloody nose.

35. The employees of Dunder Mifflin are often just playing solitaire.

Four images of various employees playing solitaire at their computers

36. In Season 3, Michael tells Jan about the kind of love he wants, and it includes "ketchup fights." He puts a ketchup fight in his movie Threat Level Midnight.

Michael says, "I want the house, Jan, I want the picket fence, I want the ketchup fights, and the tickling, and the giggling" and then there's a moment in "Threat Level Midnight" where Michael Scarn has a ketchup fight

37. Creed gives Jim a shirt for Christmas, but Creed actually wore that shirt to Jim's barbecue.

Creed wearing a plaid shirt

Here's Jim receiving the shirt:

Jim opens Creed's shirt

38. Dwight's bobblehead is of a real baseball player named Michael Scott Lieberthal.

39. Three episodes before "Lazy Scranton," Kelly talks to Michael about "Lazy Sunday."

40. Dwight grows a beet at his desk at one point.

41. Michael's girlfriend Carol — who breaks up with him because he photoshops himself into pictures of her family — has a tiny cameo in Threat Level Midnight. She's the Realtor of the real-life house Michael Scarn lives in.

At the bottom of a picture of a large house in "Threat Level Midnight," it says "Carol Stills - Realtor" with a picture of Carol's face

42. Charles uses a mug from his old company, Saticoy Steel.

43. The bottle Michael throws out of his car window is still dented later.

45. The Dunder Mifflin Employee Newsletter is filled with some exciting stuff.

The "newsletter":

47. And the TV is up for sale in the Season 7 episode "Garage Sale."

The broken TV is on a table

48. For Halloween, Gabe dresses as a skeleton, but he is so tall that he has to put two costumes together.

Gabe wearing two skeleton costumes stitched together at his stomach, so it goes from ribs to pelvis

49. When Michael is sleeping at his desk and everyone is trying to change all the clocks so they can leave early, Dwight runs to change the time in Michael's car without any shoes on so that his footsteps don't wake up Michael.

50. And finally, in "Koi Pond," some employees change their computer backgrounds to an underwater scene.

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