Fresh Loaf

If I were on top of my game, I’d have an entry about the holiday-themed series finale of Ricky Gervais’ “Extras,” which airs on HBO on Tuesday night. But apparently I’m not, because I don’t. What to do? Wait, I know: Gervais, who co-created “Extras,” also co-created an even more acclaimed sitcom, “The Office.” And the Dec. 11 episode of the U.S. “Office,” titled “Moroccan Christmas,” has a holiday theme. Not too tenuous? Anyway, here’s the episode in its entirety:

The episode’s a little dark, but includes a great prank in the teaser. In a hilarious subplot, Dwight Schrute reveals that this year’s hot holiday toy is the Unicorn Princess doll — basically a Barbie knock-off with a long, sharp horn protuding from its forehead. Those net-savvy kids at NBC have created a Unicorn Princess website, which I include just to make the Clickable Advent Calendar extra clicky.

Incidentally, “The Office” has launched another batch of webisodes, collectively titled “The Outburst” and focusing on Oscar.

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Deleted or unused scenes can be the primary selling points as value-adding extras on DVDs. Frequently, however, scenes were deleted for good reason: they’re inessential or not as good as the “keepers” that made the final cut. Sometimes they get restored for longer versions of movies on disc, but the “director’s cut” is seldom better than the original cut (with rare exceptions including James Cameron’s The Abyss).

Perhaps the gold standard for deleted material belongs to the “The Office,” NBC’s hit version of the British workplace sitcom. The newly released DVD set for “The Office’s” fourth season boasts two hours of deleted scenes, and they make even weak episodes worth revisiting. The “Arrested Development” discs also have good ones, but not in the quantity as “The Office.” Every episode seems to have around five minutes of unused comedy (up to twice that for the show’s hour-long or “supersized” installments), conveniently packaged alongside the installments in question. Here’s a little bit from the “Fun Run” episode that’s probably superfluous, but still amusing:

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I knew that “The Office’s” Ed Helms, formerly of “The Daily Show,” was from Atlanta, but I didn’t realize until recently that Brian Baumgartner, who plays Dunder-Mifflin’s slow-witted accountant Kevin Malone, is also an Atlanta native, and even attended Westminster High School with Helms. Kevin, perhaps best known for his Scranton, Pa.-based Police cover band Scrantonicity, is the central character of “Kevin’s Loan,” this summer’s series of two-minute webisodes of “The Office.” Baumgartner won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Broadband Program – Comedy for the 10-part webisode series “The Accountants” in 2006. So far three webisodes of “Kevin’s Loan” have gone on-line via NBC.com. Here’s the first, which went up on July 10:

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You know why Judah Friedlander (whose four-night stand at The Punchline continues through Sunday) is wicked funny? Because he made me laugh within the dreaded cone of pain: the 24 Mengelesque hours following the belated removal of my wisdom teeth. I was in so much pain — OK, severe annoyance — I even forgot to podcast the damn interview. It’s one of those you-had-to-be-there moments, because Friedlander is one of those comics who is so naturally funny that he reminds me of a friend of mine. That kind of funny. (My friend’s name is George. He knows who he is.)

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“A Raisin in the Sun,” the TV movie directed by Atlanta’s Kenny Leon, artistic director of True Colors Theatre, earned three Emmy Award nominations yesterday. Based on Leon’s 2004 Broadway staging of the Lorraine Hansberry stage play, “A Raisin in the Sun” won nominations for Best Made for Television Movie, Best Actress for Phylicia Rashad and Best Supporting Actress for the particularly worthy Sanaa Lathan.

Coincidentally, I happened to be interviewing one of the Best Supporting Actor nominees while the Emmys were being announced. Rainn Wilson, who plays the sublimely jerky assistant manager/beet farmer Dwight Schrute on “The Office,” was in town promoting his comedy The Rocker, which opens nationwide on August 20. Cool as a the proverbial cucumber (or less proverbial beet), Wilson chatted with me about his work during our interview at the W Hotel, completely ignoring the Emmy announcements being televised in a room away. At some point after chatting with me, Wilson stopped by the CNN newsroom for an impromptu weather report:

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