Office Party

“We were a depressed community,” says the mayor, “and there was no development. Now we have a lot of development, and things are going really well for us. You figure, we have this TV show, and this year we’re getting the Yankees’ Triple A farm team. It’s just one thing after another.”

IT’S THURSDAY NIGHT — Office night — and the rabid fans Rainn Wilson dubbed “The Four Morons” have rounded up a few dozen of their closest friends to watch the show. They’re crowded into the living room of a second-floor apartment in the part of town descriptively called “The Hill Section,” home to the campus of the University of Scranton.

A 22-year-old University senior named Philip Loscombe seems to be the ringleader of the Morons. Loscombe grew up about 20 miles from Scranton and is finishing a degree in neuroscience. He was supposed to go to New York this afternoon to interview about grad study at Sloan-Kettering.

I climb over the students studding the floor in front of the TV and grab a sofa seat. After a brief opening scene, the familiar piano notes of the Office theme sound, and the screen is filled with a montage of real Scranton places. The montage was shot by Office co-star John Krasinski, who plays the hunky salesman, Jim, whose mostly unrequited love for receptionist Pam is one of the crucial story lines of the show. Of all the characters on The Office, Jim and Pam seem most like they could really be from Scranton.

Mayor Doherty optimistically reported that plans are afoot to lure Krasinski and Jenna Fischer (who plays Pam) to town for a gathering of Office fans that might take the form of a mock Dunder-Mifflin shareholders’ meeting. Details are still sketchy, but one Scrantonian compared it to a Star Trek convention.

A visit from the big star, Steve Carell, doesn’t look likely. Before signing Rainn Wilson, the people from the Mall at Steamtown approached Carell’s people, and according to mall executive James Walsh, “We were told to make them an offer somewhere north of $250,000. It seemed to be all about ego.”

But hope is spawning more hope in Scranton. The other big new dream of this reminted prime-time town is that the entire Office cast will arrive for the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, the biggest event of the year in Scranton. Greg Daniels says he’d love to give it a try. He already sent an inquiry to Scranton asking whether the parade could be moved a few weeks from its usual spot on the Saturday before the Irish-American holiday. When the mayor’s secretary was called to relay the request, she thought, “Are you kidding? In this town? With the Irish? Not for the President or the pope would they move the parade. Never!”