Michael's Birthday

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The Office episode

"Michael's Birthday"
Gifts shared on "Michael's Birthday"
Episode No.	25
Prod. Code	219
Airdate	March 30, 2006
Writer(s)	Gene Stupnitsky & Lee Eisenberg
Director	Ken Whittingham
The Office Season 2 September 2005 - May 2006
The Dundies Sexual Harassment Office Olympics The Fire Halloween The Fight The Client Performance Review E-mail Surveillance Christmas Party Booze Cruise The Injury The Secret The Carpet Boys and Girls Valentine's Day Dwight's Speech Take Your Daughter to Work Day Michael's Birthday Drug Testing Conflict Resolution Casino Night
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The Office (US)

"Michael's Birthday" is the 19th episode of the second season of The Office (U.S. version). It was written by Gene Stupnitsky & Lee Eisenberg and directed by Ken Whittingham. It first aired on March 30, 2006.

1 Synopsis
2 Deleted scenes
3 Trivia
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Michael is excited to be celebrating his birthday and tries to get the employees excited with him. Unfortunately for Michael, Dwight seems to be the only one joining in, as the rest of the employees are more concerned with Kevin, who is awaiting his results from his skin cancer screening. Pam and Jim meanwhile decide to sneak out and go to the store to shop for gifts for Kevin.

When Michael finds out about Kevin's predicament, he gives Kevin his condolences, but subtly remains bitter that Kevin is ruining his birthday fun. Dwight and Angela are less subtle than they think they are being when discussing their secret relationship within earshot of Ryan. After goofing around at the store, Jim and Pam return to the office. To "make Kevin feel better", Michael takes the employees out ice skating. At the rink, he also runs into his real estate agent Carol with her children and he entertains them, which puts a smile on Carol's face. Kevin gets the call about his results, which turn up negative, to everyone's relief except for Michael's who believes that negative meant he did have cancer. He later explains that "Apparently, in the medicine community, negative means good, which makes absolutely no sense. In the real world community, ye-that would be... chaos." The gifts are passed out to Kevin and Michael and Pam expresses her feelings on the "great day".

[edit] Deleted scenes

In a talking head interview, Jim describes what typically happens on Michael's birthday. It ends with Michael having a sugar crash and falling asleep. "And that's when we get our work done."
In a talking head interview, Dwight explains his duties on Michael's birthday.
In a talking head interview, Michael explains how good bosses share their birthdays with their employees.
Michael tells Ryan that he doesn't need to get him a present but is clearly upset when he doesn't.
In a talking head interview, Michael tells a story of his worst birthday.
In a talking head interview, Dwight admires the concept of someone's skin turning on them.
Michael makes Ryan read to the camera information about melanoma and belittles every fact.
In a talking head interview, Angela says that Kevin should be concerned of his fate in the afterlife. "Gluttony?"

[edit] Trivia

Michael states he shares the same birthday as Eva Longoria, which means it lands on March 15. Some consider this to be a continuity error in the series, since he stated in "Sexual Harassment" that he had a "late birthday." However, he could've been lying in the context of the scene in that episode.
- A late birthday is usually referred to in a schoolkid sense, and March is fairly late through the academic year.
Michael is seen making a livestrong bracelet however he wore one in "Basketball".
Michael's real-estate agent, played by Steve Carell's wife Nancy Walls, previously appeared in "Office Olympics".
The jersey Dwight gives to Michael is a jersey of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, an actual AHL hockey team in the Scranton area which is a minor-league affiliate of the Edmonton Oilers and Pittsburgh Penguins.
Toby's suggestion to Kevin that he find out whether he can get on Stacy's health plan since Dunder-Mifflin's coverage "sucks" is a reference to the first-season episode "Health Care" in which Michael's indecision on which plan to choose leads to the employees being stuck with a very bad one.
According to Jenna Fischer, the writers had been looking for a reason to use Carell's ice-skating skills in an episode. Reportedly, he used to play hockey. (Fischer learned to skate in preparation for the movie Blades of Glory but decided that her character Pam can't.)^[1]
During the week leading up to this episode, NBC aired faux public service announcements featuring the cast of The Office for April Fool's Day, based on their real The More You Know announcements. They can all be viewed online.
Jim and Pam go shopping at a Rite Aid pharmacy. Based on store size and the Thrifty Ice Cream sign seen in the background, it is a West Coast location. East Coast stores are smaller and do not sell Thrifty Ice Cream. (Coincidentally, Rite Aid began as a single store in Scranton, Pennsylvania.)