‘The Office’ Star Reveals Cut Joke That Made Him “Really Mad”

The Office star Brian Baumgartner had some of the funniest moments in the long-running sitcom, but one of his season 5 jokes was originally cut for being a bit too racy. Baumgartner played incompetent accountant Kevin Malone in all nine seasons of The Office, and it’s clear the actor’s comedic talent is one of the main reasons the character is so memorable and still stands out as a fan-favorite.

Baumgartner recently told Entertainment Weekly that the actors on The Office were always allowed to pitch stories and jokes. “There were certainly some ideas that I had that they incorporated, and some that they did not,” he stated. In the interview, Baumgartner recalled getting “really mad” at the show’s editors for cutting a joke from the fourth episode of season 5, titled “Baby Shower.” In the (originally) deleted scene, Kevin makes a comment which suggests that he might be the father of Jan’s baby, which she had via sperm donor behind Michael’s back. Recalling his anger at the cut joke, Baumgartner said:

“One time I got really mad at the editors. There was a joke — and now they have put it back in, so most people have seen it. I just thought it was pound-for-pound an amazing joke. It was a great joke, and they cut it. Kevin begins asking her [Jan] about where she got the sperm donated for the baby. She says some version of like, ‘Oh, you know, it’s a very exclusive place,’ and Kevin knowingly says, ‘The place behind the IHOP?'”

Baumgartner believes the joke is so effective because of “the look on [Hardin’s] face thinking that possibly the donated sperm came from Kevin, and what that would mean for Michael.” When Michael originally learned that Jan had resorted to an unknown sperm donor rather than try to have a baby with him, he was understandably disappointed. However, he eventually decided he was still going to support her and the baby.

In this particular episode, Michael was blindsided once again after discovering that Jan had already given birth without his involvement. Therefore, as Baumgartner emphasizes in his explanation of the joke, the possibility that Kevin is the father, instead of Michael, adds insult to injury. From Jan’s perspective, Kevin potentially being the father is an even more horrifying possibility, since she had previously showed disgust towards the accountant.

Overall, this joke works on so many levels, but was ultimately cut when the episode originally aired in 2008. Baumgartner recalled the writers of the show telling him, “We don’t really have a storyline about this, or we don’t want to confuse people to think that it might set something up with Kevin’s baby.” Baumgartner didn’t agree with their justification for cutting the joke and tried to argue for it to remain in the show. He said:

I was like, ‘No, you’re overthinking this. This is just a great joke. Yeah, this is a great joke. That doesn’t have to go anywhere.’ I got really mad about that one, and I lost the argument, but now they have put it back in. It’s interesting, you can’t watch that episode now and not see that moment happen. So it’s a little bit of vindication for me.”

As Baumgartner notes, this joke has finally been added back into the show as it continues to dominate countless streaming platforms across the world. After Michael and Jan’s whirlwind romance, which blows up during the iconic “Dinner Party” episode in The Office season 4, the sperm donor storyline is hilarious. Even though Michael was originally disappointed that Jan didn’t want to have a baby with him, “Baby Shower” is an important episode for his character development since it sees him turn his attention away from her to instead focus on his budding relationship with Holly.

Meanwhile, Kevin possibly being the father of Jan’s baby is never brought up again in future episodes of The Office, so this joke was obviously never meant to be taken too seriously. However, now that the scene has been added back into the show, it can be treated as a fun fan theory which effectively adds an extra layer to Michael and Jan’s complex relationship in The Office season 5.