‘The Office’ Stars Reveal Why Dwight Never Appeared As Manager In Title Sequence

Although The Office had plenty of turnover, some fans are still curious why Dwight Schrute never got the full managerial treatment.

On a recent episode of the Office Ladies rewatch podcast, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey explained why Rainn Wilson‘s character wasn’t featured at the end of the title sequence when he finally took over for Steve Carell‘s Michael Scott as manager of Dunder Mifflin.

After reaching out to David Rogers, who directed the ninth and final season’s penultimate episode ‘A.A.R.M.’, Fischer explained “that there was discussion about adding a Dwight-as-manager shot at the end of this title sequence.”

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She added, “But, ultimately, they never filmed anything new for it, and here is why: The main reason was they wanted to use Pam and Jim kissing as the final image in the main title for several episodes because they felt that, at this point, the idea of who is his manager had been eclipsed by the character’s personal lives, and they felt like the focus here of these final episodes was more about summing up Jim and Pam.”

Fischer’s Pam Beesly had an onscreen romance with co-worker Jim Halpert (John Krasinski), with the characters tying the knot in Season 6 and going on to have kids.

L.D. Baker, A. Kinsey, E. Kemper, C. Bratton, P. Smith, B. Shafer, K. Flannery, J. Fischer, J. Krasinski, M. Kaling, B.J. Novak, S. Carell, R. Wilson, B. Baumgartner, E. Helms and O. Nunez in The Office. (Chris Haston/NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection)

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Rogers also noted to her that “they were really pressed for time, and they literally didn’t have time to shoot a new little manager title with Dwight. And also there was so much in this episode that they had to make the main titles really short anyway. So there were kind of three reasons,” Fischer said.

Adapted from the 2001-’03 UK series, The Office ran for nine seasons on NBC from 2005 to 2013. Meanwhile, a followup series is set at Peacock, and Prime Video is preparing to release an Australian Original adaptation of The Office on Oct. 18.