A very memorable scene from The Office consisted of Kevin Malone bringing in his famous chili for his co-workers. If you don’t remember, Kevin made his good option for chili while intentionally undercooking the onions so “everyone will get to know each other in the pot.” But after Kevin dropped his entire pot of chili, he panics and uses anything he can to scoop the chili off the floor and back into the pot.
It is a hilarious scene and to celebrate “National Chili Day,” Brian Baumgartner went on The Dan Patrick Show to discuss doing that scene.
The thing I’m most impressed was that Baumgartner revealed that he only needed one take to do that scene. Baumgarter revealed that they had the opportunity to do three takes because they cut enough carpet to place down for three takes but they only needed one and that was probably great for everyone involved. Because I imagine it would have taken hours to do another take.
Baumgartner also revealed that he, nor anyone else, actually made that chili from scratch. It was a bunch of Hormel chili that was placed in this pot. But what would be more distracting is that because Baumgartner was rolling around in the chili for comedic effect, that smell kinda stays on you. Baumgartner revealed that he was set to go to dinner at a nice restaurant in Beverly Hills that night and despite his best efforts to clean up after filming, he still smelled like chili.
And since there have been talks about rebooting The Office, Baumgartner was asked about that. Well, Baumgartner kinda put it out there and Patrick got the opportunity to ask.
Baumgartner: “Yeah, no. Not yet. We’ll see.”
Patrick: “But you don’t rule it out.”
Baumgartner: (After a few seconds of dead air) “Well, let me put it this way. I know somebody at NBC wants to do it. Wants something.”
That’s probably the smoothest non-committal I’ve seen so far regarding The Office. Brian hasn’t committed but definitely hasn’t shut the door on the idea. It’s just floating out there for now, which seems to be the case now.
