Today in History: "The Office" first broadcast on BBC

The year was 2001 and I'm referring to the one that started it all and brought comic genius Ricky Gervais into the spotlight. I'm not suggesting anything bad about the USA remake, because I love that one as well, but this is where it all began.

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As if it needed any sort of introduction, "The Office" is a mockumentary about office life in a paper company called Wernham Hogg and it is clearly a very dreary and boring place to work. Much like the US counterpart, the boss of the entire place is a rather inept and deluded manager who seems to screw things up more than he actually helps (I'm sure many people can relate to this person being embodied in many of their own bosses.) Ricky plays David Brent perfectly and some of the funniest bits is how he tries so hard to be friends or relatable to his employees through various antics that almost always have disastrous and embarrassing results.

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In one of my favorite episodes, and I wish I could remember which one it is- Brent is asked to be a guest speaker at a convention of sorts and he tries entirely too hard to be youthful and appealing to the audience and they do not take to his methods at all.

I think one of the best aspects of this show is that it has zero canned laughter like you will hear in various mass-produced sitcoms. While this is a relatively common thing in shows today, it was the first comedy I ever saw that didn't have the recorded laughter to indicate what was meant to be funny.

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_{these two have done some great work together}

The show was cringe and hilarious and believe it or not it was not even terribly popular when it was first released. It only aired for 2 seasons although it very well could have carried on longer. Gervais indicated that the reason the show was so short-lived was because it was only him and Steven Merchant doing the writing... there was no writing team and it was a lot of work. Obviously it was a tremendous global success as spinoff shows of "The Office" have been made in 10 different countries including two different series that are in French.