Michael's got a genius idea: a Willy Wonka-inspired golden ticket promotion. He slips five coupons for ten percent off into some paper boxes, then boasts about his brilliance, until all five coupons end up in the hands of Dunder Mifflin's biggest customer. Oops. Now David Wallace is pissed, and Michael's working overtime to dodge the blame. He tries to get Dwight to take the fall for him, but Dwight's on the fence until Wallace shows up in the office, in person -- and he's totally stoked about the client making DM its exclusive provider as a result of the golden ticket promotion. So now Dwight is perfectly happy to be the one who came up with the idea, which makes Michael insane. Basically they just end up ruining Wallace's day and embarrassing each other.
The b-plot is about Kevin's crush on the lady he met last week, and how he tries to deal with the conflicting advice he gets from Jim, Pam and Andy. In the end, he just says what he thinks and ends up getting a date. Well, actually, in the very end he says, "Boobs," but it could have been worse. How, I'm not sure, but somehow.
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Michael's so excited about telling Pam a knock-knock joke that he messes her up while she's trying to give out a fax number on the phone. It's the one that goes "Buddha...Buddha who...Buddha this bread for me please." Complete with props. If there's a lower form of comedy than the knock-knock joke, it's the prop knock-knock joke. "I have butter on my desk," Pam complains. Dwight also wants to share a knock-knock joke. Who's there? KGB. KGB who? And then Dwight slaps Michael and shouts, "Ve vill ask the qvestions!" That's actually kind of a decent joke, but Michael's so pissed at being slapped that it turns into a slap-fight. Which Jim interrupts with a "Ding-dong!" Michael and Dwight argue about which one of them is going answer it, until Jim reaches up and slaps Dwight. "The KGB vill vait for no von!" he shouts. "It's true," Dwight says.
Michael enters the office in a cheesy Willy Wonka outfit, complete with bow tie and top hat, and acts like a big spaz. Then he THs about how he slipped five golden tickets into paper shipments that are good for a ten-percent discount to any customer that finds it. We actually see him doing it, down in the warehouse. And acting like a big spaz.
Up in the conference room, he challenges everyone to come up with "golden ticket ideas," by which he means ideas as awesome as he thinks his idea is. Jim starts to pitch an idea around renting out their delivery trucks, but Michael shoots it down for having too many words. Andy tries to get into it, but since all he seems to do is talk about other things that have the word "golden" in them, it's not really happening. Does Michael give him points for trying? Of course not.
In the kitchen, Andy is telling Kevin not to call the lady he met last week. Jim is telling him to go on a date and then wait a month, and Pam tells him not to wait that long. Of course Jim's the one advocating patience; it worked for him, in the long run. The very, very, very long run. Kevin THs, "I don't like getting advice from more than one person at a time. I'm a textbook overthinker." I think Kevin might be using the wrong textbook. Back in the kitchen, Andy lectures that all compliments to women have to be backhanded, which Pam calls psychotic. Andy claims all guys do it, but Jim says not so much guys with girlfriends. "That was low, Tuna," Andy says. Andy's pain is pretty close to the surface this week. But then, given how deep Andy is, how far below the surface could it go?
Back in the bullpen, Jim gets a call from a client who found a golden ticket. Michael's all excited and spazzes at Jim about what kind of little boy or little girl found it, until Jim alerts him that, as chance would have it, it's Blue Cross of Pennsylvania. Who happens to be their largest client. Michael spazzes over to Oscar and asks how much ten percent of the revenue from their biggest client will cost them. Well, quite a bit, actually. And then Jim adds that they actually found five tickets in their shipment. And of course Michael forgot to include any kind of "limit one per customer" clause. Financially, this is going to sting.
In Michael's office, Jim asks Michael why he didn't spread the tickets out. Michael says he thought he did, and tries to convince Jim -- and himself -- that it will be fine. But then he goes down to the warehouse to try and pin this on Darryl. "You idiot!" he opens. "Start over," Darryl advises, which is about the nicest response Michael could have expected. Michael demands to know how five different boxes all ended up at Blue Cross. Darryl asks in turn whether the boxes were close together. "Irrelevant," Michael snaps. Darryl just says he ships out three pallets to Blue Cross every week. Because, as we already now, Blue Cross is a pretty big customer. Michael has a serious question that he warns Darryl to answer honestly: "What is a pallet?"
Back in his office, Michel tries to disavow the idea entirely. If only the camera would quit panning down to the top hat that he's set down on his desk.
Pam answers a call from David Wallace, who wants to talk to Michael. Michael has changed out of his Wonka getup, and on his way to the front door he signals to Pam to use one of his excuses. Pam obligingly tells Wallace that Michael is at a civil rights rally at the Lincoln Memorial. Oh, she's got a whole list that Michael gave her, and she shares some of them with us in a TH, like the one where Michael is at an "Obama fashion show" or "trapped in an oil painting." "I'm going to save that one," she says. We'll be looking forward to it.
Outside, Michael ditches his Wonka outfit in the dumpster, and returns to the conference room with a tan jacket over what looks like his workout clothes. He tells the assembled troops that it's not that bad; they can't fire everyone, after all. "What do you think shutting down a branch is?" Oscar asks. Michael is still trying to dodge responsibility, saying he was only picking up on everyone's subconscious ideas, filtered through his own childhood memories. Jim points out that since he's got a mortgage and just lost half his sales, he's pretty pissed, too -- at Michael. "It is not my fault that you bought a house to impress Pam," Michael protests. It's like blame-dodging is his superpower. When the main phone line rings at reception, Pam gets up to answer it, despite Michael's protests. He thinks it's Wallace calling again, and for the first time in this episode, he's right.
Michael can't avoid the call any more, and he's on the speakerphone with Wallace, who's pissed off and demanding to know how Michael let this happen. "I think we might have hired an outside marketing consultant," Michael tries. Wallace doesn't buy that, and asks if it was the sales department. Michael says it was.
"Was it Jim?"
"No."
"Was it Dwight?"
"..."
"..."
"....Yes."
After the ads, Michael calls Dwight in to congratulate him on the golden ticket idea. "That was your idea," Dwight says brightly. He points out that it couldn't have been his, since as a child he was not allowed either movies or candy, let alone movies about candy. Michael pulls out a fake diary with a fake entry about Dwight coming up with the idea, but Dwight runs out to his desk and grabs his own diary, which says otherwise. Michael asks why he has the diary in the first place. "To keep secrets from my computer," Dwight whispers. Michael continues to try to pin it on Dwight, but it's not working. So Michael asks Dwight if he'd like to join him for lunch. "With all my heart," Dwight says sincerely.
Kevin's getting more advice from Jim and Pam, this time about touching. Jim's thinking none, Pam's thinking a little, but when Kevin asks, "Like this?" and clamps a meathook over Jim's forearm, I'm going to have to give this one to Jim. Then Andy comes up and orders, "Don't touch her, don't talk to her, don't look at her!" And then we're in a three-way TH where the three of them are yelling at each other, until Andy wins the day by yelling about Kevin turning into "this blackened carbon brick in the barbecue sauce of shame and rage, and two hot people with a perfect relationship would not understand that!" They don't seem to have an answer for him.
While walking around in the parking lot, Michael is trying to riff about how often he and Dwight think exactly alike. When that doesn't work, Michael comes right out and asks Dwight to fall on his sword. Dwight refuses. "I did fall on my sword once," he THs. "I was running with it in my belt." Michael claims that with his farm, Dwight doesn't have as much to lose as Michael does. "What about Shoe-la-la?" Dwight asks. Michael says it's not ready yet, but in a TH, he does tell us about his idea for a fancy, special shoe store for men. Maybe he could put golden tickets in the shoes.
When they return to the office, Michael announces that he had a nice walk with Dwight and even enjoyed himself, with "my best friend." "These aren't announcements," Oscar protests. Michael insists that they are, "You just don't care about the information." Oscar quietly concedes the point.
In an office TH, Michael says that everyone will remember that he had a good idea today, and that's what he's writing in his diary. Dwight says he's doing the same, "In my own words." Thus ensues a battle for Dwight's diary.
Kevin meets Lynn in the parking lot and tells her he's just going to say what he's thinking. "I think you have the best smile. I'd like to take you out to dinner and a movie." She says yes, and Kevin even gets to see that smile he likes so much. "Nice!" he says. "Boobs!" Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be a deal-breaker.
Watching from the window upstairs, Andy blinks back tears. But then he pulls it together and sighs, "It's his funeral."
The tag is another ding-dong joke. Dwight says it's the KGB. Jim says he's getting out of the shower and asks him to wait. It becomes this whole long role-playing thing, until ultimately Jim gets Dwight to agree to come back at 5:15. I swear, sometimes the only difference between these two and Bugs and Daffy is a big black cartoon bomb.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then read about the Office staff's Most Roastable (read: humiliating) Moments! And check back week for the full recap!
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter (mgiant), or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.