Michael Scott Quick Stats
- Name: Michael Gary Scott
- Occupation: Regional Manager of Dunder-Mifflin Scranton
- Marital Status: Unmarried - Currently in a relationship with Jan Levinson
Michael Scott Bio
Michael's plans for a college degree were thwarted when he lost his college savings (earned while employed at an Arby's Restaurant) in a pyramid scheme (a trap he would fall into again as an adult). He is moderately insecure about his lack of a degree, especially when he feels threatened by people with more education; Ryan Howard's business school attendance is especially destructive to his ego. Occasionally, in order to fit in, he implies that he attended college, though his specious "recollections" of his college days come across as bizarre (e.g. inviting professors to a college party, although some might debate whether or not that was said to have himself invited to Jim's party). Other times, Michael boasts of his executive status despite his lack of a degree. He was on the fast track to upper level management, enjoying a brief career as a sales rep before being promoted to his current position. A talented salesman, Michael has a way of relating to potential clients through regular conversation that has helped land his branch some big accounts. However, his laidback approach to work more often results in workplace productivity not reaching 100% on a daily basis, particularly when Michael places his personal interests as a priority over work (such as his birthday, someone else's birthday, or a funeral for a deceased bird). The staff has noted that they find "little time" to get their work done while putting up with Michael's daily antics, which are a major distraction. To avoid being disciplined for his foolish actions, Michael often resorts to scapegoating employees to cover himself. This often backfires on him when he opens his mouth and ends up contradicting the facts.
Michael fancies himself a comedian with a variety of middlebrow influences, including Dane Cook, Eddie Murphy's "Raw", and Chris Rock, the latter of which he once quoted the famous "Niggas vs. Black People" routine. He keeps several joke books in his desk for reference and has a turban so he can imitate Johnny Carson's Carnac the Magnificent. Michael stages an annual full comedy show during "The Dundies" office party and awards show. He also idolizes Drew Carey, Ryan Stiles and Robin Williams. He considers himself "a student of comedy", even enrolling in an acting improv class that marks him an outcast among his classmates by his obnoxiousness, and constantly pretending to have gun which he "shoots" the other participants with in every improv sketch.
Michael tortures the office staff on a daily basis with his jokes, many of which are offensive or insensitive to his office audience. Among the more frequent things Michael does is host seminars that range from diversity, the handicapped and prison in an attempt to educate his staff, who all seem more aware and mature about the subject matter than Michael. However, it's due to Michael's ignorance that results in these seminars being an embarrassing disaster every time that alternately amuses and shocks the staff. One particular prank in trying to rally together the employees of the Scranton-Stamford merger had Michael taking the air out of all their car tires and blaming it on building tenant Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration. Michael was revealed to be the culprit when one of the staff noticed his tires weren't flat. Ironically, Bob Vance helped the employees out by putting air back into their tires. Michael also once ordered a stripper be sent to the office for his birthday. His relationship with the company warehouse employees, particularly Daryl the supervisor, is tense. Michael has a tendency to disrupt their daily work flow, even breaking their record of over two years without any on-the job accidents. He occasionally uses dated phrases such as "T.M.I." and goofy slang, calling pizza "za" and Starbucks "the 'Bucks". One of his favorite gags is adding the phrase "that's what she said!" to some perfectly normal statements, implying a sexual connotation. He has, however, retired "don't go there" from his phrasebook because it's "lame". Michael also greatly enjoys franchise restaurants such as Sbarro, choosing to eat there on his visit to New York instead of one of the local specialty restaurants. He has held business meetings and company award nights at Chili's, and scheduled others at Hooters. He also enjoyed a day out at the Japanese steakhouse Benihana and took a waitress back to the office Christmas Party. He often harrasses his female employees, especially Pam.
Salesman Dwight Schrute, Michael's assistant in name only, hero-worships Michael; Michael tends to put down Dwight, but apparently likes the attention. Michael sometimes panders to Dwight by giving him more responsibility than he deserves, such as appointing Dwight to choose a healthcare plan for the office, ordering Dwight to urinate in a cup for him so he could pass a drug test, making Dwight an honorary security guard for the building, and changing Dwight's job title from "Assistant to the Regional Manager" to "Assistant Regional Manager" (which Michael later admits is meaningless). Many of these duties stem from Michael's need to compensate for being liked, or to save himself from getting in trouble. Michael is also listed as Dwight's emergency contact. Although, Michael's respect for Dwight seems to be threatened by the presence of Andy Bernard (Ed Helms), an obnoxious employee from the Scranton-Stamford branch merger, with designs on moving up on the corporate ladder. Eventually, Andy manages to push Dwight out by feeding off the past incident of Dwight's attempt to steal Michael's job. Dwight later resigns when it's revealed he went to the Dunder-Mifflin corporate offices in New York City, arousing Michael's suspicion that Dwight went behind his back again. Although secretly, it was Dwight protecting Angela from repercussions over missing a deadline by passing in paperwork for her. Although, Michael and Dwight's friendship is later mended when Michael learns the truth behind Dwight's resignation and Dwight gets his job back. In turn, Andy is at odds with Michael when he begins to creep Michael out. Michael later says of both Andy and Dwight "I learned something today. I don't want someone sucking up to me because of their career, I want someone sucking up to me, because they love me."
Michael is particularly cruel towards Toby Flenderson, the human resources representative, partially because Michael considers his position "corporate", and therefore not a member of the Scranton branch family. Completely resenting him, Michael freely insults Toby by either bringing up his divorce or making hurtful remarks. He has even resorted to physical oppression by checking him into the boards during Michael's birthday trip to a hockey rink, and wrestling away a file folder belonging to Toby (ironically, in asserting his role as mediator of office conflict). Michael has asked employees four times if it's Toby's fault as to why they're unhappy and want to leave Dunder-Mifflin (both certainly weren't). Toby took away Michael's corporate credit card after it was used to buy $80 worth of magic tricks to entertain potential customers. More often than not, Toby has to correct Michael on Dunder Mifflin policy. Secretly, Toby archives staff complaints against Michael on a quarterly basis and stores them away in the office warehouse. However, on a personal note, Toby offers helpful one-on-one conversation with his enemy after a dejected Michael is forced to face the reality that he has not settled down with a family, and Michael bonds with Toby's daughter.
Michael also has a tendency to say or act out in the open in front of the staff that should be held secretly such as revealing personal information about staff to the entire office. More notable examples include Michael reading aloud confidential complaints given to Toby by staff, blowing up at Dwight after finding out he tried to steal his job, and firing an employee from the Scranton-Stamford branch merger in front of everybody. This has frequently led to tensions in the office. One particularly infamous incident involving Michael was revealing a spicy photo of he and Jan on a vacation, which was inexplicably passed around the office via e-mail (and summoning Dwight to cover Michael's tracks for him). Lately, his attempts to "educate" the newly constructed staff has already resulted in three resignations from former Stamford employees, given Michael's inadvertent manner of humiliating them. Michael thinks they're just quitters, but has no clue that it's actually his incompetence as a manager that's prompting them to quit.
In a childhood appearance on the fictitious children's show Fundlebundle, Michael stated his intentions as a grown-up: "I want to be married and have a hundred kids so I could have a hundred friends and no one could say 'no' to being my friend."
At 42, Michael is still single, but says he "does all right," presumably with women. He is experimenting with online dating under the username "littlekidlover," which he hopes will exude to potential dates his kindness toward children, but could be terribly misconstrued. Despite this, he does get along rather well with kids. Michael also began dating Carol Stills (played by Carell's spouse, Nancy Walls), a real estate agent with whom Michael worked to buy his condominium; according to Michael, he and Carol have had sex. He frequently claims he's dating two women at the same time as with Carol and Jan. Michael proposed to Carol during a Diwali celebration, but since they had only gone on nine dates up until that point, she rejected him and left the party angrily. Carol breaks up with Michael soon after due to a Christmas card of Carol's family that he sent out, with his head photoshopped in place of her ex-husband's head, leaving him heartbroken. But later in the same episode, Michael invites an unknown woman to go on a trip to Jamaica with him that he originally intended for Carol. In the following episode, "Back From Vacation", it is revealed that the woman Michael invited was Jan, who later confesses she is attracted to Michael but admits that he's totally wrong for her. Michael also admits in the same episode that their relationship has become sexual.
Michael fixates on Ryan Howard, an employee (temp in Seasons 1-2, full-time in Season 3) at the office. He views Jim Halpert as a friend, and shortly after Jim's admission to Michael of his crush on Pam Beesly (an admission which Jim comes to regret), Michael began mimicking Jim's appearance (rolling his sleeves up, loosening his tie and collar, combing his hair down). This phase of the relationship ended after Michael was unable to keep Jim's "secret", but Jim has since claimed to be Michael's "friend" ("The Convention"). It may be inferred that he has a "thing" for Pam, since he once claims that he "likes her boobs" and suggests that his position as her boss precludes him from taking a bath with her ("Sexual Harassment"). He has been caught staring at her (or Ryan; this could be a habit, as Jim did it as well) from his office. More often than not, Pam has had to deal with Michael not so much as a boss, but as a child behaving badly either by comments he makes or job duties he does not perform as required. Michael tries to make an awkward pass at Pam (who tries to console him after Carol rejected his marriage proposal) during a conversation, which Pam quickly rejects.
In the episode "Gay Witch Hunt", Michael outs a gay employee (Oscar) and after constantly denying that he's gay (although claims he'd be the most flamboyant gay person), hugs and subsequently kisses Oscar.
Although Michael has been seen talking to his mother on the phone, his emergency contact is "friend" Todd Packer - arguably the most obnoxious person on the show. In a deleted scene, Scott recalls a convention he and Packer went to in Hartford, Connecticut "a couple years ago" which ended up with Michael being abandoned by Packer in the parking lot of a bar, and left with a group of angry bouncers Packer had offended when he made-out with one of their girlfriends. The group beat him badly enough that it was featured in the local paper.
Michael drives a Chrysler Sebring convertible and pays a mortgage on a condominium. He owns a guitar, but does not know how to play it. He is an excellent ice skater, and says he "almost" played in the NHL but wanted to settle down with a family, which he still has yet to do. He attends classes in improvisational comedy, and believes that his skills are among the best in the world. In improvisational skits, he tends to play his tough-guy alter-ego (FBI agent "Michael Scarn", the main character in a motion picture screenplay he authored), and guns down all the other players to steal every scene. He constantly compliments his own performances, from joke-telling to impressions to videotape skits he creates for presentation in the office.
Dwight has stated that Michael's favorite song is "The Longest Time" by "William Joel." Michael prefers the song as heard on the radio, and is less impressed with toy recorder renditions. Dwight has also stated that the only thing that Michael Scott is scared of is "nothing" (And also "snakes"). Michael's cell phone ring tone was "Mambo No. 5," but was changed and heard to be "My Humps" during the convention, which is later revealed to be personalized for Pam. He experimented with cannabis at an Alicia Keys concert, under the impression that it was clove cigarettes.
He is a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, and likes Night Swept (a Drakkar Noir clone sold at Rite Aid), Blue Blast thirst quencher, and Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. Michael also has a daily tradition of cooking bacon on the George Foreman Grill just before waking up, so he can wake up to the smell of freshly cooked bacon. He also has an extreme reaction when ingesting large amounts of sugar, which causes him to become hyperactive and in turn, distract the office. His haircut is an "Adult Cut Plus" from Fantastic Sams ("Conflict Resolution"). Michael also loves wearing jeans, in particular a white pair he refers to as his "Fun Jeans." ("The Convention"). He is so fond of his jeans that he gets them dry cleaned; Pam surmises that he instituted Casual Friday just to show off his jeans ("The Client").
Michael has written a screenplay called "Threat Level: Midnight", supposedly based on his life, starring himself as Agent Michael Scarn. Scarn's secretary and love interest (based on Pam) is named "Catherine Zeta-Jones". Another character, Samuel L. Chang, is based on Dwight (in fact the character was originally named Dwight before changing it using a search and replace, however he left one misspelled "Dwigt" in the script). Kevin gave the script "two thumbs down".
Michael treasures his "World's Best Boss" mug, even though he bought it for himself at Spencer's Gifts. (In a deleted scene from The Secret we learn that he keeps several spare mugs in his desk in case the original is broken.)
Michael Scott Trivia
- Creator Greg Daniels envisioned Michael Scott behaving as if "I was hoping that the documentary about this would one day be seen by Jennifer Aniston, and I was just trying to impress her any way I possibly could.
- Creator Greg Daniels notes the occasional need to show Michael being competent or even effective, to justify why he is not simply fired.