It's been 20 years since Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's The Office first debuted on TV, earmarking the start of a seismic career for Gervais on both sides of the pond.
As well as being a much loved cult favourite, The Office spawned a successful US spin off starring Steve Carrell, and a weighty Hollywood career for Ricky Gervais.
Gervais has presented the annual Golden Globes awards five times, and has led blockbuster films including The Invention of Lying, Ghost Town and Night at the Museum.
It's all thanks to The Office, the satirical sitcom set in a dreary work space in suburban Britain. To celebrate the 20th anniversary, here are some things about the series you might never have known.
It got horrendous ratings when it first aired
When The Office launched in 2001 the ratings were so diabolical that the sitcom was almost cancelled before its first season had come to an end, according to Digital Trends.
The same was true of the first season of the American Office back in 2005.
Michael Schur who played Mose in the series, wrote about how they'd basically assumed the series was a gonner before it became successful.
It also got horrendous reviews from viewers
"The first series got the lowest ever BBC focus group score," Gervais told Shortlist.
"Joint bottom alongside women’s bowls. But we didn’t change a thing. We knew how good it was, but that doesn’t guarantee success on any level.
"There are loads of great things that get cancelled. For us, ‘success’ just meant getting our own way and having it turn out exactly as we wanted."
The BBC gave the creative team complete freedom
Given the feedback the broadcasters had received from focus groups, it feels surprising that Gervais and Merchant were left to their own devices with The Office.
However, the BBC trusted them to power on and complete the first season anyway.
"It may still be unheard of in British TV to get left alone like we were as first-time directors," says Gervais in an interview with The Sun.
David Brent did an in-house Microsoft training video
The tech company weren't happy when the training video, featuring Ricky and Stephen Merchant wandering through an office, leaked online.
It wasn't clear who had leaked the videos, although Microsoft said in a statement that they were "never intended to be viewed by the public."
In one leaked video entitled The Office Values, David Brent is heard describing himself as "too generous" when it comes to his time, being interviewed by Merchant's character Oggy.
Martin Freeman auditioned for a different role
“I originally read for the part of Gareth," Martin said in an interview with Beyond The Joke. "It was only as I was leaving that Ricky asked me to read for Tim.”
The role of Gareth went to Pirates of the Caribbean actor Mackenzie Crook.
While we're on the subject of Gareth, Gervais said in an interview with The Sun that the role was based on a real person.
Gareth, says Gervais, is "based on a bloke I went to school with. He once said, ‘If you get captured by cannibals, they show you pornographic pictures so you get an erection and there’s more meat’. I used his gems for Gareth.”
There was very little improvisation - except for that one iconic scene...
95% of The Office was scripted, Gervais and Merchant revealed to the BBC. It makes the spontaneous feel of those awkward scenes even more impressive.
However, there was one scene which was actually spontaneous, and it's one of the most elaborate.
David Brent's cringeworthy office dance was all done off the hoof. "I just went berserk for about 30 seconds, then had to have a sit down for about 30 minutes," he told the BBC.
Scripts for the Christmas episode were sent to the wrong address - and ended up getting leaked
When a producer posted scripts out to be read by another member of the team, they accidentally sent them to the wrong address.
Tthe recipient realised they'd landed on a gold mine and sold them to the papers.
"The woman who mistakenly received it did what any thoughtful, law-abiding citizen would do and sold it to the Mail On Sunday," Gervais and Merchant said of the leaked scripts, speaking to the BBC.
One scene required 74 takes
Shooting Tim's appraisal required a Herculean 74 attempts as Gervais and Martin Freeman couldn't hold themselves together.
“We kept laughing and couldn't get through the dialogue,” the show creator told BBC.
There are more adaptations than you'd imagine
Of course, there's the Golden Globe award-winning American version of The Office.
But other versions of the show have travelled to non-English-speaking nations. France has its own version called Le Bureau and Germany has Stromberg.
Canada also has La Job, there's La Ofis in Chile, HaMisrad in Israel and Kontoret in Sweden.
