The Office has been on fire this season with the Pixar related humor. Tonight, one of Michael’s solo interviews in front of the camera featured a hilarious joke about A Bug’s Life and Antz. The joke is not a spoiler at all for what is happening in the story, so if you have not seen the episode yet, you need not worry about having plot details spoiled. I have transcribed the dialogue (and added a video link), which you will find after the jump.
Speaking to the camera, Michael says the following:
I am a huge Woody Allen fan – although I’ve only seen Antz, but I’ll tell you something. What I respect about that man is that when he was going through all that stuff that came out in the press – about how Antz was just a rip-off of A Bug’s Life, he stayed true to his films, or at least the film that I saw, which again was Antz.
Thing is, I thought Bug’s Life was better – much better than Antz. Point is, don’t listen to your critics. Listen to your fans.
The two animated films were the source of some tension between Pixar and Dreamworks, as the studio’s respective films both had ants as their main characters. For The Office to poke fun at that makes the show incredibly conscious of the animation industry – but we already knew that from the show’s episode that featured Woody.
Mindy Kaling, who plays Kelly on the show and is also a writer, has often expressed her devotion for Pixar. I would not be surprised if this joke came from the mind of Kaling.
We will post a video link to the joke when the episode shows up on Hulu.
UPDATE (2/19/11): Here is the link to video of the Pixar reference. I have queued up the video to include only the part described above. Click here to view it in full-screen.
