The Jim Prank That Still Has The Office Fans Scratching Their Heads

A key element of "The Office" was the ongoing prank war between Jim Halpert and Dwight Schrute. Week after week, the two salesmen tormented each other with pranks ranging from the benign to far more hazardous tricks. Jim and Dwight's very unprofessional antics saw them engaging in a brutal snowball fight, climbing telephone poles, relocating desks, hiding office supplies in Jell-O molds, and experimenting with Pavlovian conditioning.

Admittedly, the "war" was mostly one-sided, with Jim being the aggressor more often than not. But, Jim should get credit for his dedication to the battle — though his employers would likely have preferred he focused more on selling paper. Several of his pranks were "long cons," like steadily increasing the weight of Dwight's phone over several days as well as a "The Da Vinci Code"-like quest for the alleged Holy Grail, which somehow made its way to Dunder Mifflin's warehouse. However, there is one Jim prank, occurring in the aptly named episode "Garden Party," that, while impressive, seems to rely on a large dose of luck to pull off.

In the Season 8 episode, Andy Bernard, in hopes of impressing both his emotionally distant father and the unimpressible Robert California, uses Dwight's beet farm as the site of a traditional garden party. Unfortunately for the "Nard Dog," he is once again upstaged by his brother and snubbed by his father. Of course, even if Andy's father hadn't played favorites with his sons, the garden party still would have been a bizarre mess.

Following the instructions laid out in the book "The Ultimate Guide to Throwing A Garden Party," Dwight fills the event with shouted announcements of guests' arrivals, a reenactment of the "Last Supper," and Olympic-style closing ceremonies. As viewers come to learn, the book Dwight ordered was actually written by Jim — under the pseudonym James Trickington — for the express purpose of embarrassing Dwight. It's a high-level prank for sure, but writing an entire book, self-publishing it, and then hoping a naïve Dwight would order it leaves a lot to chance, which is not typical of Jim's pranks.

Recently, Redditor u/Ginni1604 used the platform to ask fellow "The Office" fans if this particular prank went beyond the credible. The majority of the responses agreed that this particular long con left too much to chance, especially given the time commitment required by Jim. However, as true "The Office" fans, most were willing, if not downright eager, to suspend disbelief and enjoy one of Jim's best pranks.