Kevin Malone’s Chili Doesn’t Make the Cut—But Brian Baumgartner Is Still Watching “The Paper” With Skeptical Eyes

Sage Matthews here, your favorite person who’s seen every disaster unfold in slow motion and still hasn’t learned to look away. You know that feeling when you’re scrolling through the news at 3 a.m., half-awake, and suddenly realize you’ve just spent 45 minutes watching a man cry over a broken toaster? That’s me. And today’s headline? Oh, it’s not even about the toaster. It’s about a mockumentary spinoff of a show that was already dead for years, now resurrected like some cursed sitcom zombie. Welcome to The Paper, where Greg Daniels is trying to reboot the office comedy corpse with fresh blood and old vibes—and Brian Baumgartner, the man who played Kevin Malone, is watching it all like a spectator at a funeral he didn’t want to attend.

Let’s be honest: if you’re not emotionally invested in a show that once made you laugh while pretending to file reports on paper clips, then you’re probably doing it right. But no one saw this coming—well, except maybe everyone who’s ever watched a streaming algorithm go full unhinged. The Office wasn’t just a hit during its original run; it became a cultural time capsule, a digital relic that somehow gained more power after death than it ever had in life. Nielsen data from 2020 shows it raked in over 57 billion minutes viewed—more than any other show that year. That’s not success. That’s a cult. And now, thanks to Peacock and the eternal hunger for nostalgia, we’re getting another version of it. Only this time, it’s called The Paper, and it’s supposed to feel like the original—but without Kevin Malone, his chili, or even his soul.

Brian Baumgartner, the man who made “I’m gonna need a bigger bag” a meme before memes were cool, has weighed in. He says he’s excited. He says the trailer looks good. He says it “really well done, really engaging, very, very, very ‘Office looking.’” Which, in layman’s terms, means he’s politely nodding along while internally screaming, “This is a disaster waiting to happen.” He’s not joining. Not yet. But he’s open to it—because Greg Daniels, the creator, “is usually not wrong.” That’s not a compliment. That’s a warning sign. If someone says “usually not wrong,” they’re basically saying “I’ve been wrong enough times to know I’m always wrong.”

And let’s talk about the cast. Domhnall Gleeson? Sure. Sabrina Impacciatore? Fine. But the only original cast member returning? Oscar Núñez. That’s it. One ghost. One echo. The rest are new faces, fresh bodies, and probably zero emotional baggage. Meanwhile, Baumgartner admits he’s still dealing with the fallout of the show’s second life. “It feels like by high school, it’s required viewing for people,” he said. That’s not a joke. That’s a sociological breakdown. A generation growing up knowing Kevin Malone’s terrible jokes better than their own parents’ names. How did we get here? Did we lose control of our collective attention span? Or did we just decide that laughing at cringe was the only thing keeping us sane?

So yes, The Paper premieres September 4. Yes, it’s a mockumentary. Yes, it’s being streamed on Peacock. And yes, Brian Baumgartner will probably watch it—probably with a beer, probably while muttering, “Of course this happened.” Because nothing ever changes. We keep recycling the same jokes, the same formats, the same tired tropes. And we keep pretending it’s innovation. At this point, should we even pretend to be surprised?

Sources: Celebrity Storm and New York Post
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