The One Food The Office's Brian Baumgartner Will Never Eat Again
All fans of The Office can appreciate how the show was groundbreaking for its documentary filming style and its improvisation. In fact, Mental Floss says all cast members needed to have improv experience to make the show feel more natural. And natural it was, with the cringey Michael/Oscar kiss, Kevin's chili spill, and the cameraman's sigh after Jim closed the door on him (via Insider).
Another unique aspect of The Office is the sheer amount of food we see the characters consume across nine seasons. The work lunches, the Finer Things Club, the birthday parties. Every episode seemed to have one reason or another for characters to be eating.
Most of us don't give these short scenes a second thought. But in reality, these scenes can sometimes take days to film — and that means eating the same thing over and over and over until everything is perfect. Talk about too much of a good thing!
The mint chocolate chip ice cream cake
As you might recall, in episode four of season one, Michael decides to use Meredith's birthday party as a morale booster for the office. Usually the birthday person gets to pick the dessert, but Michael insists on a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake — which Meredith can't even enjoy because of a dairy allergy.
Brian Baumgartner, who played Kevin, told Bon Appetit that the party scene took a painful five days to film. Each time the camera panned around to his character, he had to be shoveling the extremely green cake into his mouth. We certainly can't blame him for never wanting to eat mint chocolate chip ice cream cake again.
And Baumgartner isn't the only Office alum who has sworn off ice cream cake of the mint variety. According to Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Jenna Fischer and Mindy Kaling (who played Pam and Kelly, respectively) also got sick from eating too much of the cake. Clearly, more is not always merrier.