Fans of The Office know that Jim Halpert is a lean, mean, pranking machine. But in real life, John Krasinski isn’t very skilled in the practical joke department.
On the latest episode of the Office Ladies podcast, former co-stars Jenna Fischer, Angela Kinsey, and John Krasinski reminisced about their time on the show and discussed Season 2, Episode 12, “Casino Night.”
After Kinsey and Krasinski chatted about one of their most memorable inside jokes, Fischer shared the one memory she has of Krasinski pranking her on set.
“Jenna, what jokes did we have? We didn’t get along well,” Krasinski joked. “Boy we had so many bits.” After he fondly recalled the two of them scribbling inside jokes to each other on Post-it Notes and prop memos, Fischer thought back to the time she got pranked.
“John, you played one prank on me in the whole nine years of The Office, like one fully-formed good thought-out prank,” she said. “It was at Schrute Farms and you and I had this scene where we had to drive up to the farmhouse several times, and we’re doing it and I am getting increasingly more hot.”
“I’m like warm, I’m sweating,” Fischer explained. “I’m like, ‘Oh my god, it’s so hot,’ and we had to turn off the AC for sound and you’re like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know, I’m OK. But you’re hot, huh?'”
“This went on for like 15 minutes, and all of a sudden you start snickering and you had turned on my seat warmer all the way to the hottest setting,” Fischer laughed.
“Oh my god, that was late in the run wasn’t it?” Krasinski asked. “That was late in the run,” Fischer confirmed. “But I was so excited because whenever we would go on talk shows they would always ask us if we played pranks on each other and I’d say no, not really, I mean besides just like little jokes on Post-it Notes or something.”
“We weren’t pranky, you know? But then finally after you did that in the car I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is great! I finally have a prank to talk about!” she said.
“I’m terrible at pranks. I realized that I am such a bad prankster.”
Krasinski then proceeded to say four words that his character Jim Halpert would never utter: “I’m terrible at pranks.”
Though he did manage to pull off this one extremely low-stakes prank on Fischer, it turns out the prank wasn’t even original.
“You know what’s sad about that prank? I realized that I am such a bad prankster that I stole that prank from Clooney,” Krasinski said. “When we were doing Leatherheads he did that to me, so that’s how unoriginal I am.”
“I was like, ‘I’m gonna take George Clooney’s bit and do it to Jenna,’ and I thought that would make me cool,” he explained. “So basically you got Clooney’d is what you got. “
“Oh my gosh, I got a recycled prank,” Fischer said. “I did. One degree of separation.”
While Krasinski might not live up to his Jim Halpert’s pranking abilities, Kinsey did give him props for stealing a George Clooney prank. “I think that prank just keeps getting cooler,” she said. “Like that’s a pretty fancy prank.”
Over the years it also seems like Krasinski has gotten a little better at pranking Fischer. Remember when he showed up to Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup final with David Denman, who played Roy Anderson?
Jim would have been proud of that level of effort.
You can stream episodes of The Office on Netflix and follow along with the podcast every week on Earwolf, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.