In the opening segment of The Office season premiere last night, a bunch of the office mates were engaging in something called “parkour” — basically trying to do the most extreme thing possible to get from point A to point B. There were a few really funny scenes in there, especially when Andy took a dive into the empty refrigerator box. In case you don’t know what parkour is, check out this YouTube video.
Today, host of G4’s Web Soup, Nerdist, made a really interesting observation via Twitter. G4’s Web Soup did a very similar video called “Extreme Office Parkour,” only they did theirs two months ago — well before even The Office season premiere screeners went out. Check it out below.
And here’s The Office version (via Hulu — sorry if you can’t view it):
Similar? Well, hell yeah, they are. There are several ways to interpret this, though:
What do you think?
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Sep 18, 2009 @ 14:56 EST5EDT
I think I don’t care.
*POST AUTHOR*
How incredibly insightful of you!
I would bet a lot of money that this is just coincidence.
Parkour has been showing up in a lot of places (movies, video games etc). I’d guess the writers had this brilliant idea: “Hey this Parkour thing is out there. How can we put it in the Office? How about Michael and Dwight just run around and jump on things? Yeah!”
And frankly, what are the odds that they’ve ever watched G4 let alone want to rip it off?
I did notice a slight difference. Up until the refrigerator box The Office version wasn’t funny while the G4 one was (in that “this is so retarded” kind of way)
I’d actually seen the Chris Hardwick skit a while back, but never even connected it while watching The Office, since as you said the idea is so basic.
Hardwick’s a lot funnier off the cuff than he is reading the teleprompter on Web Soup, by the way.
it wasn’t just @nerdist who noticed…a lot of his twitter followers back east did as well and brought it to his attention. I was at the Web Soup taping when EXP clip was unveiled and the more I was of The Office’s opening, even I thought “well, wow…that smells familiar”
I LOVE The Office, but I think credit to Web Soup is due. Parkour is not that huge and some of the gags are too similar to be coincidence.
if it’s meant to be an homage, great, but credit and props to the Web Soup kids needs to be paid.
it wasn’t just @nerdist who noticed…a lot of his twitter followers back east did as well and brought it to his attention. I was at the Web Soup taping when EXP clip was unveiled and the more I watched of The Office’s opening, even I thought “well, wow…that smells familiar”
I LOVE The Office, but I think credit to Web Soup is due. Parkour is not that huge and some of the gags are too similar to be coincidence.
if it’s meant to be an homage, great, but credit and props to the Web Soup kids needs to be paid.
Nipple!
This is way funnier! Don’t get me wrong, i LOVE the Office!
Chris “Hard” wick is hot! I love nerds!
=]