One of the best parts of ‘The Office’, besides everything, was their cold opens. The cold open of a TV show is the short scene before the opening credits, and few shows perfected this better than The Office (the only other show that came close was Parks & Rec, which had many of the same writers and creators). In honor of that, we decided to do a special Monster Blog and pick our favorite cold opens.

Jim’s Murder Prank on Dwight

It was a tough call not to pick a cold open involving Michael Scott, but this is probably my favorite prank Jim pulled on Dwight. Dwight is leading the ‘Sabre’ team in Florida and he goes room to room with Erin to make sure everyone is up early and ready to take on the day. Well at this point in the series, Jim has two children, so he’s up early anyway, so he decides to use his unique sleep schedule to his advantage and pull the ultimate prank on Dwight. This entire cold open as a whole is great, but Jim’s part is easily my favorite. A supplementary kudos goes to Erin’s reaction when she sees the ‘It Was Dwight’ written on the wall. God I miss this show.

-Ryan

Kevin’s Famous Chili

Easily one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make for a Monster Blog. Like Ryan said, how can you pick a cold open without Michael Scott in it? I’ll tell you how, because this show is that damn good that the best character in TV history doesn’t need to be part of the cold opens to make it funny. I picked Kevin Malone’s famous chili cold open because Kevin is a fun-loving simpleton, and this whole situation is such a Kevin move it hurts. Pretty much sums up his character. The genius in this scene is in the editing. Having Kevin fuck it all up while the voice-over is him explaining how much detail and painstaking labor goes into this chili is comedic genius.

-Matt