WUPHF.com

"WUPHF.com" is the ninth episode of the seventh season of The Office and the 135th overall. The episode was directed by Danny Leiner and was written by Aaron Shure. It first aired on November 18, 2010. It was viewed by 7.28 million people.

Cold open[]

In the cold open, the power goes out briefly when Michael overloads an outlet. Although power is quickly restored, the company server has rebooted. It was set up eight years ago, and no one remembers the password. Michael recalls that Pam got offended by the password. After a few guesses, the password turns out to be "bigboobz".

Synopsis[]

Michael and Ryan arrive for work with WUPHF.com bumper stickers on their cars and film an advertisement for the website in Michael's office. Afterwards, Erin comments to Pam that Ryan's new project is using a lot of Dunder Mifflin supplies after he is seen collecting a large stack of papers from the printer. As the new office administrator and an investor in WUPHF.com, Pam ignores it. Michael and Ryan talk about WUPHF.com and how it has an offer to be purchased, but Ryan insists the company can be worth a lot more money if they had more investors to fine-tune it before they sell. The two make an announcement that they are inviting more people in as investors. No one bites, so the current investors remain Darryl, Andy, Pam, and Stanley. They meet with Ryan and Michael in the conference room. Everybody wants to sell the company that only has 9 days before bankruptcy, except Ryan, who uses Michael's friendship against him to keep the majority vote. Kelly enters the room, claiming she came up with the idea and that she wants to sue. Ryan coddles her and tells the investors that he'll take care of everything. In the break room, Pam tries to convince Michael that Ryan is using him and that other people could be hurt financially if Ryan doesn't sell WUPHF.com, which is only valuable because of its domain name that will be bought by the Washington University Public Health Fund. Michael claims he has faith in Ryan. Michael tests Pam's theory and when Ryan dodges attempts to hang out and encourages Michael to take out a second mortgage on his condo, Michael sees some truth. Later, Darryl pulls Ryan out of his closet and the four investors try to bully Ryan into selling, but Michael comes in. He eventually gives Ryan an ultimatum to make WUPHF.com profitable in 9 days. After pondering, Ryan decides to sell the domain name.

Meanwhile, Jim is on a hot sales streak. After talking with Kevin and learning he isn't getting any commission from his latest sales, he approaches Gabe. Gabe informs him of Sabre's new commission cap but insists Jim still keep busy. With no motivation, Jim grows extremely bored. After attempting to goof off with Creed, he decides to focus his efforts on pranking Gabe by editing Jo Bennett's audiobook to insult Gabe and trick him into sitting through the entire thing, using manipulated audio of Jo's voice to order him to note any changes in the book.

As the owner of the business park, Dwight hosts a Hay Festival in the parking lot. He gets so carried away that he misses his scheduled rendezvous with Angela, who meets Robert Lipton, a widower taking his son to the Hay Festival. The two begin to flirt, and Robert asks Angela if it's alright for him to call her. Angela voids Dwight's contract and tapes it to the door of their meeting place. At the end of the festival, Dwight crowns himself "Hay King" to rectify his childhood disappointment of losing to Mose as a child.

Deleted scenes[]

Michael tells Angela that someone is going to do his taxes. Ryan interrupts and says that Michael could be a billionaire. Ryan tells the audience that WUPHF.com used to be a prototype.
Dwight and Nate meet a busty girl named Sheri and recommended her to play the role of Mother Harvest.
Darryl invested with Ryan because the internet has a history of rewarding annoying, white boys.
Michael and Ryan take Andy to Michael's office under false pretenses. Andy says, "The Nard Dog does not invest in friends' companies."
Dwight is eating lunch dressed as the Hay King and is interrupted by Angela.
Michael interrupts Toby's video chat with Sasha to have a conversation about Ryan using him.
Dwight reads a poem called "Mother Earth". It goes as follows:

The water runs, the Sun will glint,
This is our environment
The Hay King steps upon the ground
He wields a giant man-sword 'round
He penetrates Mother Earth
Once, twice, again and again
And again and again for all he's worth
Pounding into her soft warm dirt
Her lips quivering
Mounds shaking in ecstasy
And sudden relief

Kevin is still stuck in the Hay Maze.

Connections to previous episodes[]

When discussing past IT workers, Jim asks, "What was the name of the guy in the glasses, again?" in reference to the glasses-wearing IT worker, Nick. This is a reference to "Whistleblower," when Nick gets angry with the office, especially Jim, for not knowing his name.
In "Lecture Circuit" Michael is shown to have a system where he remembers people's names by first calling them an offensive nickname like 'baldy' or 'fatso' and then finding a way to connect that to their real name. In this episode, he refers to former IT guys by their offensive nicknames first, specifically 'glasses, turban, ear hair, fatty three, shorts, fatty two, lozenge, and fatso.' Given enough time, he may have remembered the real names of the IT workers.
Turban is a reference to Sadiq, who appears a few times in the first few seasons before he is replaced by Nick as the IT technician
Ryan wears a WUPHF.com t-shirt to advertise while being part of Dunder Mifflin's Lip Dub in "Nepotism."
In "The Promotion," Ryan cons Pam out of $50 with the promise of $5000 a year later as the result of a friend who "has an algorithm to predict the winner of any given college basketball game."
Jim edits together snippets of Jo's autobiography Take A Good Look, which he got from her in "Manager and Salesman."
In "Manager and Salesman", Jim gives up the manager position because he learns that Sabre has no cap on commissions. It is possible Sabre instituted a commissions cap following the scandal with the printers that catch fire, as the company would be making less money due to this.

Goofs[]

Kevin is using a calculator to calculate a sales cap and he somehow gets the figure to zero despite him not knowing that there was a sales cap.
Pam tells Michael, "We don't recycle." In "Two Weeks", Michael crawls to Jim's desk, in front of four paper recycling bins, three marked "white" and one marked "colors". In "Shareholder Meeting", Jim says that Corporate instituted a recycling program "five years ago". It's possible that Sabre cancelled the recycling program when they bought Dunder Mifflin.
Despite the name, Hay Place is made of straw, which is much less expensive. It's possible that this was intentional on Dwight's part, knowing that city folk wouldn't know the difference. On the other hand, Dwight studies the bales and declares "This is good hay."

Amusing details[]

Erin comments with contempt that Ryan's chart is full of color. She previously expressed her unhappiness at Ryan using office supplies for WUPHF.
Angela awkwardly points to herself and Dwight after he misunderstands her request of "a roll in the hay."
The WUPHF flier Oscar is holding while discussing finances with Ryan says "What ISN'T WUPHF?"
Jim comments how Meredith is wasting time playing Solitaire, prompting her to snap at him "back off, it's Solitaire!"
Michael reveals he has been separating the trash into whites and colors for eight years, confusing it with laundry or paper recycling.
Nate kneels on the ground while presenting Dwight with the hay crown.
It is implied that Ryan spent the investment money on WUPHF merchandise, such as WUPHF t-shirts and condoms.
While Ryan himself has only one bumper sticker for WHPHF.com, Michael has covered his entire bumper with those bumper stickers.
Dwight arrives at the usual meeting place with Angela for intercourse in his hay king costume.

Trivia[]

In a previous episode when Ryan sends himself a WUPHF, he gets a call from Erin who says, "Ryan, you've got a WUPHF on line one." When he sends himself a WUPHF in this episode, he does not get a phone call.
The little boy that Dwight speaks with will appear as his nephew in "The Farm." This most likely wasn't planned, because in that episode it seems that Dwight's sister and her son do not live in the area.
Robert Lipton's son, who appears in this episode, does not appear for the rest of the series. Robert's wife is deceased, so the son would've been in his full custody.
Dwight and Angela's procreation contract officially becomes voided in this episode.

Playing cards[]

Jim is an Ace
Dwight is a King
Oscar is a Queen
Phyllis is the Old Maid
Pam is a "solid seven"
Toby is the instruction card that you throw away
Ryan is a Two (sometimes twos are wild)
Michael is the Joker

Cultural references[]

When trying to guess the server password, Pam mentions The Lord of the Rings films.
Michael and Ryan's WUPHF skit is similar to the Apple Get A Mac advertising campaign.
MLK stands for Martin Luther King Jr. His "I Have A Dream" speech is a 17-minute public speech delivered on August 28, 1963, in which he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination.
Stanley's dream bears a similarity to a scene in the video game Diddy Kong Racing: After completing the fourth level, the lighthouse converts to a rocket ship and launches the player into space.
John Legend is an American singer-songwriter and actor.
Silicon Valley is the nickname for the area near San Francisco, home to many of the world's largest technology corporations as well as thousands of small startups. Actor Zach Woods (Gabe) would later go on to star in a television show of the same name.
Michael has been separating trash into whites and colors. Separating white paper from colored paper is commonly done because white paper is worth more to recyclers. It is also common to separate whites and colors when doing laundry. Separating trash, however, is pointless.
When Pam tries to persuade Michael that Ryan is taking advantage of him, Michael responds with, "You may be right. I may be crazy," the opening lines to the song "You May Be Right" by Billy Joel. After Pam points this out, she gives him permission to continue, and he does with the song's next line, "But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for."
Michael compares his employees to playing cards. Oscar is "my queen". The term "queen" is used to describe an effeminate gay man. Phyllis is an "old maid", referring to a children's card game in which the "old maid" is an old unmarried woman. Pam is "a solid 7" serves as a double entendre about her appearance. He compares Ryan to a "2" and says that they can sometimes be wild, referencing "deuces wild" varieties of card games in which a deuce represents any suit or number.

WUPHF.com

Contents

Cold open[]

Synopsis[]

Deleted scenes[]

Connections to previous episodes[]

Goofs[]

Amusing details[]

Trivia[]

Playing cards[]

Cultural references[]

Quotes[]

Cast[]

Main cast[]

Supporting cast[]

Recurring cast[]

Guest cast[]

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