‘The Office’ cast and writers discuss the memorable Season 5 Halloween cold open

Remember when Dwight dressed as the Joker for Halloween in an episode of The Office? Then Kevin dressed as the Joker for Halloween? Then Creed dressed as the Joker for Halloween, too?

That genuinely put a smile on my face.

In the latest episode of the Office Ladies podcast, Office stars Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey chatted all about the Season 5 episode, “Employee Transfer,” which features the memorable Halloween-themed cold open in which all three Jokers appear.

Curious why the cold open was all-in on Halloween but the rest of the episode wasn’t, however, Fischer and Kinsey reached out to episode writer Anthony Ferrell to get the inside scoop.

What’s up with the Halloween teaser?

“The show was initially — the entire episode was supposed to be Halloween. So everyone was in their costumes for the entire episode. Andy was a kitten initially, I think. And the whole B-story with Dwight being in the Cornell sweater, that was his costume — an accidental costume, initially. And that’s where that story came from,” Ferrell explained.

“So costume-wise, we had a thing where once we decided we were going to just put the Halloween stuff in the cold open, we rewrote the cold open. And that was mostly led by [writers] Lee [Eisenberg] and Gene [Stupnitsky]. And that’s where the idea for the three Jokers came from.”

Ferrell shared that the Joker was a super popular Halloween costume in 2008. TBT. And while the Joker trio was brilliant, in the DVD commentary Ferrell explained that the writers felt the costumes would distract from the episode’s storylines, so that’s why they’re only seen up top.

In case you wanted a costume refresher, Kinsey gave a gorgeous rundown.

“So per the script, here are some details: Stanley, in the script, is wearing a Creature from the Black Lagoon rubber mask with his regular suit. Creed, per the script, is an amazing Joker from Batman, whereas Kevin is a ‘lame Joker.’ And in the script it says Dwight is also a Joker,” Kinsey explained.

“Kelly is Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City. Ryan is Gordon Gekko from Wall Street… Oscar is Uncle Sam. Meredith, a cheerleader. Phyllis is Raggedy Ann. Andy, per the script, it says he’s dressed as a cat with whiskers on his face. [And] Angela has brought back her cat costume,” Kinsey continued.

Who does that leave? Jim, who’s simply wearing a name tag that says “Dave.” And Pam, who’s at corporate dressed as Charlie Chaplin. 

OK. OK. Back to the three Jokers. 

To take things a step further Fischer reached out to the show’s new wardrobe designer, Alicia Raycraft, who took over for Carey Bennett in Season 5.

“She said that with this episode, she had to really ride the line of designing wardrobe, but also making sure that the costumes look like things that we could have put together ourselves,” Fischer explained. “The script said that Creed’s joker was supposed to be the best version of the Joker. Kevin’s was supposed to be lame.”

“And they’re The Dark Knight Joker,” Kinsey confirmed.

Fischer said that to prepare, Raycraft made a shopping list and set out to get Creed a killer, accurate costume, and to buy Kevin some regular-looking clothes that had light Joker vibes.

“But for Dwight, she said they went with a nod to the Jack Nicholson version of the Joker,” Fischer said.

Though there wasn’t much Halloween in this Halloween episode, you have to admit, the cold open really raised the bar for TV costumes.

Be sure to listen to the full podcast episode for more behind-the-scenes stories from “Employee Transfer.”

You can stream episodes of The Office on Peacock and follow along with the podcast every week on Earwolf, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.