The Office is a sitcom that sits firmly in the past, which means that as time goes on and social mores change, there may be some particularly cringeworthy moments in your rewatch you may not have remembered. “Diversity Day,” the show’s second episode in its uneven first season, is a very strong example of some kinds of humor that might ring more as gross than funny here in the present.
A deleted scene from a Halloween episode of The Office is another example of something that, even in the moment, they thought would be a bit too dark. And according to Screen Rant, another potential scene was cut before it ever got shot because it would be a bit too offensive to some.
According to some excerpts of The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s (a new oral history of the show), via Entertainment Weekly, the idea came from Aaron Schure, who wrote on Seasons 5 through 8 and wanted Michael Scott to have a “Christlike” awakening following an incident where he sort of gets crucified on a garage door:
The episode would have focused on Michael playing basketball at his house with Jim and presumably other coworkers. At some point, the garage door was supposed to open as Michael’s shirt got caught, pulling him up. Michael would have been left hanging from the door directly under the basketball hoop, which served as the crown of thorns worn by Jesus ahead of his crucifixion. None of Michael’s friends would have noticed, leaving him hanging there overnight. The next day, Michael would go to work “feeling Christlike” due to the fact that he was crucified by the garage door.
The storyline never went anywhere, but it is a good example of how Michael Scott as a character was always on the very edge of what would be acceptable and still funny. Some ideas, however, were simply too much for some.
[via EW]