The Office cold opened so disturbingly that it was never broadcast again

There is a long and some would say proud tradition of popular shows managing to offend viewers. In the event that For example, episodes of the show “The Simpsons” were completely banned in several countries for its supposed insensitivity to certain cultures (although as creator Matt Greening once said in a BBC documentary, “It's just a TV show, it's a cute little cartoon”). Other times, plucking episodes from the air is probably more justified. For example, after the Columbine murders in 1999, the WB made a controversial choice several episodes of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” on the shelf which featured a school shooting (which turned out to not really be a school shooting). While the choice to pull these episodes was heavily criticized at the time, at least you can understand the network's mentality.

Most recently CBS had to cut a scene from “The Big Bang Theory” in syndication because it's so dated. Similarly, a certain scene from the movie “The Office” was removed from subsequent broadcasts and releases of the series because some considered the actions of Steve Carell's Michael Scott to be highly inappropriate.

“But Michael Scott is known for his inappropriateness,” I hear you say. True, but NBC seems to have drawn the line at simulated suicide. That means the network drew the line at one particular simulated suicide. In season 3, Michael already pretended to jump off the roof of his office block to teach employees about safety. But in Season 6, he clearly took things too far by pulling a similar stunt in front of the kids.

The cold opens for “The Office” has one of the funniest moments on the show and have become almost as beloved as the series itself. From Michael, Dwight and Andy's foray into Parkour to the fire drill sequence revealed one of the best and most chaotic episodes of “The Office”, pre-credits sequences have been responsible for some legendary moments throughout the series' nine seasons. One cold open that surely would have become just as legendary was never allowed to build such a legacy, but after it was pulled from the show after its first airing. Why? Because Michael pretended to end his life in front of a group of children.

The Season 6 episode, titled “Koi Pond,” originally began with Dander Mifflin employees holding a haunted house event for local Scranton children at their warehouse. The sequence opens with Michael greeting the kids wearing an outfit modeled after Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake's classic Saturday Night Live digital short “D**k in a Box.” You'd think donning an outfit designed to get people to open a gift box placed above the crotch in front of children would be enough to get some onlookers up in arms, but Michael saved the real controversy for the final moments.

After promising to “scare these kids so bad,” Dunder Mifflin's boss disappears while the kids are led around the warehouse by a disinterested Daryl (Craig Robinson). At the very end, when the children are promised candy, Michael appears again, this time hanging from the rafters of the warehouse with his neck in a noose. The image of a man bending over in a noose carrying a gift box over his crotch as children scream at the sight was, believe it or not, just a little controversial. A fact so controversial that NBC basically scrubbed all of this coldness from the “Office” history books.

When Haunted House opened in 2009, it was never officially released again — except that the official YouTube channel for “The Office” briefly uploaded and then removed the sequence after the original broadcast. Not only did NBC get rid of future broadcasts and DVD releases, but also in 2021 Peacock started releasing “Superfan” episodes of “The Office”. complete with missing and deleted scenes. But when the time came Superfan Season 6 Episode “The Office” hit the stream, the haunted house cold open was nowhere to be seen. It can still be found onlineHowever, it has appeared sporadically on various sites since it first aired.

So what was the problem? There never seems to have been any official explanation, but AV Club claims to have spoken to a “former producer” who asked to remain anonymous. According to the mysterious producers, the decision on this issue was not only the result of resentment among viewers. Apparently, Caryn Zucker, the wife of then-NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, questioned the sequence because she worked in suicide prevention. The producer claims that Zucker pressured her husband to pull it, causing the episode to be “cut and re-delivered, with the original HD-SR delivery masters collected back from NBC and thrown into deep storage.”

Since then, some “Office” fans have called for the official re-release of this lost scene. Redditors have wondered why NBC's vaults have been languishing cold when the show has featured “much crazier stuff and crazier jokes.” Others were just grateful for the reminder of the whole thing, with one user writing: “I knew I remembered it, but I guess I just made it up in my head!” Elsewhere, several users claimed that strangely, the scene continues on the VUDU version of the episode, but no one will see it, so NBC can rest easy.