Like the majority of Gen-Zers her age, Billie Eilish is completely, hopelessly obsessed with The Office. She’s so obsessed, in fact, that one of the stunning tracks on her debut album, “My Strange Addiction,” weaves in a bunch of dialogue from the show’s beloved episode “Threat Level Midnight,” where Michael Scott (Steve Carell) unveils his movie magnum opus to a divisive crowd at Dunder Mifflin. Iconic dialogue such as “I haven’t done that dance since my wife died” and “You should enter it in festivals” wound up in the song, and as with any sample, proper clearance was required for Eilish to include them without legal repercussions. The process was as painless as possible, though. Speaking with Rolling Stone, Office star and writer B.J. Novak said that despite the numerous chains of command the request had to go through, everyone was unanimous in their consent. And that’s how you do the Scarn, baby!
“They had to get approval of all the cast that was on it,” Novak explained, meaning Steve Carell, Mindy Kaling, John Krasinski, and Novak had to sign off. “I was fine with it regardless,” added Novak, “but I was like ‘Wow, bonus: This is a banger.’” But a bigger banger than jumping to the right and shaking a hand, and then jumping to the left and shaking that hand? TBD.
