The Office Season 6 Spent $45,000 on the Rights to Use One Song
The Office season 6 spent $45,000 on the rights to a certain song. Based on the BBC series of the same name created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, NBC's hit mockumentary depicts the everyday work lives of the office employees of the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company. Steve Carrell leads the cast as regional manager Michael Scott, along with John Krasinski as salesman Jim Halpert, Jenna Fischer as receptionist Pam Beasley, Rainn Wilson as assistant to the regional manager Dwight Schrute, and Angela Kinsey as uptight accounting whiz Angela Martin.
Over 9 successful seasons, The Office provided plenty of memorable musical moments, starting with Michael wallowing in his office to the iTunes preview of James Blunt's "Goodbye My Lover" after being dumped by Carol (Nancy Carell). A much more uplifting moment includes the office's choreographed dance during Jim and Pam's wedding set to the tune of Chris Brown's "Forever." Another melancholy musical moment includes the office's emotional rendition of "Seasons of Love" from Rent to say goodbye to their beloved boss, Michael.
On the latest episode of Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey's rewatch podcast, Office Ladies (via Mashable), the former co-stars chat all about The Office season 6 episode 10, "Murder." About five minutes into the episode, Michael is alone in his office blasting Shawn Mullins' 1998 hit "Lullaby" to ease his worries about Dunder Mifflin filing for bankruptcy, even singing the lyrics, "Everything is gonna be all right. Rockabye. Rockabye." During the podcast discussion, Fischer reveals that line producer Randy Corday told her the show spent $45,000 to acquire the rights to use that song.
The Office Ladies podcast has been a wellspring of budgetary details about the show. In past episodes, the duo revealed that the season 5 episode "Cafe Disco" spent $40,000 to use the song, "Everybody Dance Now." Another musical moment from season 3's "A Benihana Christmas" cost the show $60,000 for Michael to just sing the lyrics to "Two Tickets To Paradise." However, the most expensive scene in Office history didn't involve any licensing fees, as Jim's gas station proposal to Pam cost a whopping $250,000 to pull off.
While many of these price tags may sound hefty, in retrospect, they were all undoubtedly worth it, since many of the song choices help land a certain joke or make their respective scene complete. Even though it ended in 2013, The Office has lived on due to fans' incessant rewatching, and it remains in the public eye due to the popular Office Ladies rewatch podcast. Hopefully, host Fischer and Kinsey reveal some more noteworthy tidbits about The Office in future episodes.
Source: Office Ladies (via Mashable)