‘The Office’ Pranks Jim Pulled on Dwight That Defy Science and Logic
In case you hadn’t noticed, Jim Halpert is a monster. Dunder Mifflin’s resident handsome smirk machine is an HR nightmare, not just for all the times he relentlessly hit on his co-workers but for all the over-the-top, borderline sociopathic pranks he routinely pulled on Dwight Schrute. Some of these jokes were just downright cruel, such as planting a “bloody glove” to make him think he’d committed murder. Other times, Jim’s pranks were just wildly unrealistic…
Quad Desk
The show featured a number of practically-questionable pranks involving Dwight’s desk — whether it was covering a cardboard facsimile of it in wrapping paper or somehow dragging the desk across the office, fitting it through the tiny men’s room door, and hooking up Dwight’s phone and computer.
Even more eyebrow-raising was when Jim built the “Quad Desk” by stacking one desk on top of two others, which seems like a complex, potentially dangerous project for one paper salesman.
Pavlovian Conditioning
Jim trains Dwight to expect an Altoid every time he hears the chime of Jim’s computer restarting, Ivan Pavlov-style.
Sure, there’s a chance this may have worked, but Jim’s training only extends as far as tenuously remembering a lesson in school about a nameless scientist who “trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell.” But as we've mentioned before, Pavlov’s experiment was a tad more complicated and far more unpleasant. In addition to mutilating said dogs to gauge the effects, he rarely used a bell, preferring metronomes or electric shocks. Thankfully Jim didn’t go that far.
The Red Wire
Jim buys 500 feet of red wire from a flea market, hooks it up to Dwight’s computer with no explanation — then he runs it through the office building taped to the walls, across the road and up a tall telephone pole, which is both dangerous and illegal. Any sensible co-worker or spouse would have talked some sense into Jim before he hatched this time-consuming threat to public safety.
The Velcro Suit
Jim custom-ordered Dwight’s exact suit, but “made with tearaway velcro,” which isn’t a service clothiers typically offer and presumably set him back a pretty penny. He then switches out the real suit for the duplicate at the dry cleaners (which possibly required a bribe), and the change was, somehow, not detected by Dwight — allowing Jim to effortlessly yank off Dwight’s clothes in the office parking lot.
Jim Wrote An Entire Goddamn Book
In the eighth season episode, “Garden Party,” Schrute Farms hosts an outdoor soiree. To mess with Dwight, Jim writes and prints a fake etiquette book, “The Ultimate Guide to Throwing a Garden Party” by “James Trickington,” selling the only copy to Dwight.
Really Jim? You have a full-time job and a pregnant wife, but you took god knows how long to write an entire 10-chapter book full of garbage advice purely to marginally screw over a co-worker for a few hours? How did he ensure that this massive amount of effort would: A) lead to the book being purchased online by Dwight; and B) that the advice in said book would actually be implemented? Plus, Jim’s suggestions aren’t even that weird compared to what normally transpires at Schrute Farms. If anything, the fake book may have made the party less eccentric. And so, it’s more like Jim pranked Jim.
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