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Michael Scott's 'Pretzel Day' Order from 'The Office' Episode Recreated in TikTok Video

A memorable moment from NBC's "The Office" treated the building's employees to a special annual pretzel cart with a variety of available toppings.

Published May 17, 2021

 (Cooking Panda)
Image Via Cooking Panda

On April 26, 2021, the culinary TikTok channel Cooking Panda uploaded a special video. The video, which was also posted on YouTube, showed a scene from "The Office" along with what Michael Scott's "Pretzel Day" order for "the works" might have looked like.

The video was posted on National Pretzel Day.

'Pretzel Day'

The "Pretzel Day" scenes appeared in an episode of "The Office" entitled "Initiation," which was Season 3, Episode 5.

In the episode, employees of Scranton Business Park lined up on the ground floor for a free soft pretzel. The special day happened once a year. A man with a pretzel cart set up in the lobby with equipment and all of the ingredients.

Michael Scott's (Steve Carell) pretzel order for "the works," as shown in the TikTok video, included 18 toppings. They were "sweet glaze, cinnamon sugar, chocolate, white chocolate, fudge, M&M's, caramel dip, mint chip, chocolate chip, marshmallows, nuts, toffee nuts, coconuts, peanut butter drizzle, Oreos, sprinkles, cotton candy bits, and powdered sugar."

(We should note here that Michael Scott's pretzel was never shown in the episode.)

Stanley Hudson

The episode is a favorite for fans of the character Stanley Hudson (Leslie David Baker).

In perhaps one of his most famous quotes, Hudson said: "I wake up every morning in a bed that's too small, drive my daughter to a school that's too expensive, and then I go to work to a job for which I get paid too little, but on Pretzel Day? Well, I like Pretzel Day."

In a deleted scene from the episode, Stanley and Michael bond for a moment. Stanley even utters one of Michael's most famous phrases. This was rare for the show, as Stanley's character was often annoyed at Michael's antics and just wanted to go home.

Stanley's pretzel order, which was cut from the episode, was purportedly "salty, with extra mustard."

Inspiration for the Episode

Confirmation of Stanley's order came from an episode of the "Office Ladies" podcast, which is hosted by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. The pair portrayed Pam Beesly and Angela Martin on the show.

According to Showbiz Cheat Sheet, which documented the interesting tidbits from the podcast, the idea for the "Pretzel Day" episode of "The Office" came from visiting real office parks.

During season 1, the writers for The Office were taken to visit real offices to find inspiration for storylines and episodes and they even visited a paper company.

Writer B.J. Novak told Fischer that at one office park he witnessed a spin on pretzel day — the employees were given a morale boost with free food and the were so excited about this company perk. The writers put the idea on a card in the writers’ room and B.J. thought that Stanley would be the character who is most excited about the free snacks.

To bring the idea to life, the show rented a pretzel cart from a prop house and ordered 100 pretzels and the toppings, and the leftovers were eaten by the cast and crew of the show.

In sum, Michael Scott's "the works" pretzel from the "Pretzel Day" episode was recreated with all 18 toppings in a TikTok video from Cooking Panda. Check out more culinary creations on Cooking Panda's channel.

Jordan Liles is a Senior Reporter who has been with Snopes since 2016.

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