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Love The Office's Many Pranks? You'll Love the Spooky New Show Scare Tactics
NBC's The Office had pranks between Jim Halpert and Dwight Schrute that could rival USA Network's Scare Tactics.
The Office is known for a lot of things, but one of the biggest draws from the show was the many creative pranks that happened within the walls of Dunder Mifflin. If you want to see real-life people get similarly pranked, you'll love the new USA Network series, Scare Tactics.
Soon, USA Network and Monkeypaw Productions are resurrecting Scare Tactics. Viewers can catch new episodes beginning October 4, 2024 featuring movie-quality sets and scares designed to freak out real-life people in pranks that would rival even Jim Halpert's (John Krazinski) most elaborate plays to rile up Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson). While Dwight wasn't a fan of always being the subject of pranks, the minds behind Scare Tactics report the vast majority of participants were excited to be a part of the joke, as soon as they were let in on it. So why not take some enjoyment at their elaborately planned fright?
The tension between pranker and prankee which lives at the heart of Scare Tactics was explored in detail over the course of 9 seasons on NBC’s The Office. The evolving relationship between Jim and Dwight began antagonistically but later morphed into something more complicated and strangely beautiful.
RELATED: Dwight's Greatest Prank on The Office Was Never Actually Revealed - Here's What Happened
The Office is ostensibly a workplace comedy but that never stopped it from including elements of horror. Dwight cutting the face off a CPR dummy and wearing it as his own is a memorable example, and that the Scranton Strangler looms large over the local landscape of the town. Meanwhile, Jim and Dwight (not to mention other characters from The Office) tormented one another, first earnestly and then affectionately, with a series of over-the-top and sometimes downright spooky pranks. The producers of Scare Tactics could learn a thing or two from the everyday horrors of working in an office.
Jim and Dwight’s Snowball War
The holidays are about taking stock of one's life and expressing appreciation for the people we love. They are also about pushing our workplace enemies to their psychological breaking point. Most of the office is busily preparing a fancy holiday party to celebrate Holly’s return to Scranton in the two-part Season 7 episode “Classy Christmas.”
During the festivities, Jim wallops Dwight in the face with a snowball at short range. Harnessing a righteous and justifiable fury, Dwight ratchets up the snowball war intensity with increasingly complex snowy traps, slowly unraveling Jim’s sanity in the process.
By the end of the episode, Jim emerges onto a darkened parking lot filled with motionless snowmen, any or all of whom could hide the next frozen sphere of death. Overwhelmed with fear and duly beaten by Dwight’s psychological onslaught, Jim ravenously attacks the snowmen. Meanwhile, Dwight is on the roof, knowing that the anticipation of attack is always more frightening than the attack itself.
The Time Jim Was Bitten by a Vampire Bat
Ryan invites Michael to be a guest speaker at his business class in the Season 3 episode “Business School,” leaving the office to the whims of Jim, Dwight, and a bat stuck in the ceiling. Dwight opens a ceiling tile and releases the animal into the wider office, to the horror of everyone. Perhaps the only sensible person in the office, Stanley bails immediately.
Jim, meanwhile, attempts to convince Dwight he is slowly turning into a vampire. He tells Dwight he was bitten but there isn’t any mark. He presses at his neck and reports feeling tingly and “strangely powerful.” He gets headaches from the blinding light coming off Angela’s crucifix and burns his hand on a cold piece of garlic bread. Despite the mounting evidence, Dwight keeps a cool head saying, “one crisis at a time” and that it makes sense a vampire bat would come to a “sylvania,” like Pennsylvania.
The New Dunder Mifflin Website is Alive!
The launch of the Dunder Mifflin Infinity website is imminent and is projected to become the most successful sales channel in the company, outpacing any individual salesperson. Like the legend of John Henry against the machine, Dwight decides to take on the website mano y machina in the Season 4 episode “Dunder Mifflin Infinity.” The horror element arrives courtesy of a prank from Jim and Pam.
To taunt Dwight, they start sending instant messages from DunMiff/sys, posing as the website. It just became self aware and was programmed to be Dwight’s enemy; to destroy him when it comes to selling paper. Dwight keeps calm, “it appears that the website has become alive. This happens to computers and robots sometimes,” Dwight says.
In the end, there is a happy ending when Dwight sells more paper, “in your face machines!” and the website (Pam) sends a final message acknowledging defeat.
Jim and Dwight Go Jump Scare for Jump Scare
The internet loves nothing more than scaring the life out of strangers, which is why jump scare videos circulate around the web every so often. In a deleted scene from the Season 5 episode “The Surplus,” Jim offers Dwight a video of the most relaxing meadow you’ve ever seen.
Of course, Dwight is chronically online. He knows what’s up and what to expect. He watches the video and has no reaction at all when the ghoul pops up. However, when he turns to gloat to Jim, there’s no one there. Suddenly, the ghoul emerges next to him in the real world, courtesy of Jim in a mask. It’s jump scares on jump scares, and you can see it in the episode’s superfan extended cut.
The Time Jim Framed Dwight for Murder
During a work trip in the Season 8 episode “Tallahassee,” Dwight takes responsibility for keeping everyone on track. He accounts for personal grooming and predicted mishaps and determines he needs to wake everyone up early, and personally.
One by one, Dwight enters each of his office mates’ rooms and jolts them from their slumber. By the time he gets to Jim’s room with Erin in tow, Jim has been awake for hours and staged an elaborate murder scene. There’s static on the television, a rope made of sheets hanging off the balcony, a briefcase full of case, and a note scrawled on the walls reading “it was Dwight.” Then Jim’s “lifeless body” falls out of the closet.
Robert California’s Disquieting Monologue
The Season 8 episode “Spooked” is appropriately named for the especially unhinged monologue delivered by one Robert California. The office is having a Halloween party and Robert attends, along with his young son. After an evening of fear and fun, in which he'd subtly asked everyone about their fears Robert California tells a strangely disjointed story.
It begins with a house on a hill, a suicide, and a demonic possession. A woman with an infant child hears a loud hissing noise in the house. Running to the nursery, she finds a snake wrapped around her baby’s neck, the crib full of dirt, the baby clawing and screaming. It’s an increasingly deranged story about a woman detached, ostensibly an examination of fear and the way it insinuates itself into our lives. Or maybe it’s just the deranged musings of a madman. Either way, it’s disconcerting.
Gabe’s Cinema of the Unsettling
Robert California’s story isn’t the only unsettling element in the Season 8 episode “Spooked.” When he arrives at the party with his young son, Bert, and finds a game of pin the wart on the witch, the office workers worry the party is too kid oriented. Erin feels like she’s in trouble for messing up the party, which Phyllis and Angela reinforce by being jerks.
Hoping to pick things up and clear the air, Erin goes to Gabe for help. “Remember that Halloween party you took me to once? The one where I started crying as soon as I walked in, and I didn’t stop crying.” Erin wants the party to be a tiny bit like that one. Gabe starts laughing in a way that could be interpreted as malicious, then runs to his car. When he comes back, it’s with a movie called Meditations of Horror, a disjointed film experience akin to the killer film in The Ring.
There’s bizarre ambient noise, rapidly decaying food, grimy teeth, and a cake that bleeds when you slice it. It starts out weird and then gets weirder. There’s footage of Oscar’s grandmother eating soup, shots from the back of Stanley’s car, and a complete lack of narrative.
“Maybe the filmmaker realized that even narrative is comforting,” Gabe says.
The Breaking of Recyclops
Recyclops first showed up in the Season 6 episode “Shareholder Meeting,” as a sorely needed mascot for Earth Day. The character, created by Dwight, began as a wholesome ambassador committed to saving the Earth. He gave recycling suggestions like using old milk cartons as planters for flowers. Like the climate crisis he embodies, Recyclops becomes increasingly dangerous with each passing year.
By the time we meet him, he’s given up on his Earth-saving mission in favor of attempting to destroy humanity. What started with a simple costume, a green t-shirt and a third eye, eventually evolved into an armored alien soldier hellbent on our destruction.
Recyclops’ home planet was attacked by some other fictitious thing (probably his arch nemesis Polluticorn) and has since renounced Earth Day and vowed to destroy the planet he once loved. Maybe it’s because he’s grieving the loss of his own world, and maybe it’s because of humanity’s seeming ambivalence to environmental concerns. Whatever the cause, Recyclops is here to drown us in our own over-watered lawns.
How to Watch Scare Tactics
The pranks on The Office sometimes got a little out of hand, but on Scare Tactics they get downright spine-tingling. Scare Tactics will premiere on USA Network Friday, October 4 at 10 p.m. ET. The debut episode will simultaneously air on Bravo, SYFY, and E!.
