Digital Short: The Japanese Office - SNL

Ricky Gervais presents the inspiration for The Office. [Season 33, 2008]

#SNL

[atmatthew]

"Pamo, Pamo, Pamo, Pamo, Pamo,

-Japanese Michael Scott

[madisonlarson]

I just really appreciate Stanley playing Sudoku instead of doing a crossword 😂

[cdjwmusic]

"jim you're not caucasian" "you seriously never noticed? props on you for not seeing race"

[MrJeff]

Hader is just amazing. He basically is Dwight in this sketch, like exactly.

[Bkesal]

I think they skipped a beat here by not getting Asian Jim to play Jim

[oskaraskubilis]

I'm so glad they got Steve Carell for this. No one can play Michael better than him.

[GunterJPN]

Meta moment: Michael’s mug actually says “World’s Funniest Boss, ” but because he is Japanese and modest, he says that he is “JAPAN’S Funniest Boss.”

[tqqtwgc]

My friend shared me this skit, as a Japanese fan of The Office and Steve Carell I literally laughed out watching this. Also Bill's Japanese-katakana-ish pronunciation of "assistant" is very accurate.

[lucapescador-jin]

I can’t believe Steve carrel was casted in both the Japanese and American office, very cool!

[AfnanStudio_]

As a japanese speaker, they're speaking real japanese just with funny pronunciation.

[matttondr]

The attention to detail is awesome. Like “Jim” fidgeting with chopsticks instead of a pen after pranking “Dwight”.. Or “Stanley” solving sudoku instead of crosswords.

[jessebrobin]

Lol the fact that Hader looks exactly like Dwight 😂😂, and when Kristen covered her mouth to laugh, oh man I laughed out loud there. Good skit

[thecakeman]

Never realized how the laugh track does NOT work with the office

[georgethejudge]

This must have been so weird for people who have never seen the office before.

[shadow]

Steve Carell is such an amazing actor just from the fact he replicated the same expressions, timings, and body language while speaking Japanese. wow

[Whatatroopa]

Using the language barrier as the element to create awkwardness for an English speaking audience is a very cerebral take on comedy. I like this one a lot.

[Cmon_bro]

Does this mean that the Asian jim prank that jim played on dwight is switched with jim actually being white.

[bristian]

*They really nailed Micheal Scott, not gonna lie.*

[safwanalvi]

I get the feeling that Bill Hader would've actually been a great Dwight, ofc nobody can beat Rainn Wilson tho

[CliveHandforthTheCalendarMan]

I'm currently learning Japanese right now in school, and my goal at the end of the year is to re-watch this sketch and finally understand every word if of it.

Edit a year later: So we didn't learn a lot of dictionary words, it was mostly the written language and a lot of sentences grammar, plus some basic phrases. I understand a little more now but just barely.
Luckily, there are three more levels of Japanese I can take the next three years, so hopefully by then I can achieve my original goal???