Brian Baumgartner, the actor who played Kevin on ‘The Office’: “They cut one of my best jokes because they overthought it”

‘The Office’ is one of the most significant TV comedies of this century, and this was largely due to its ensemble cast, filled with iconic characters who found themselves in situations as surreal as they were absurd. At the time, Brian Baumgartner brought Kevin Malone to life, one of the series’ most memorable characters. More than a decade after the show ended, Baumgartner recalls how the writers cut one of his best jokes because, in the actor’s words, the writers were “overthinking this.”

Brian Baumgartner, who played Kevin on ‘The Office,’ reveals why the writers cut one of his funniest jokes

Kevin Malone was one of the most colorful employees at the Scranton branch of the paper company Dunder Mifflin. Despite his enormous size and initially intimidating appearance, he won the affection of his coworkers with his affable and calm demeanor... which is also why he was, on several occasions, the target of Michael’s (Steve Carell) frequent teasing. Recently, the actor who played him, Brian Baumgartner, told Entertainment Weekly about a joke he would have been the star of, but the writers cut it from the series.

During the production of ‘The Office,’ it was common for the cast members to pass on suggestions for character development or gags to the writers, and these ideas were usually accepted. However, there was one in particular that was rejected by Baumgartner, which pissed him off “pretty badly”: it took place during the episode ‘Baby Shower’ of season five, where Jan (Melora Hardin) was pregnant. In previous episodes, it was revealed that the father wasn’t Michael, but an anonymous donor from a sperm bank. So, Kevin would have asked her about the biological father in his characteristically clumsy way… and the punchline of the joke would have implied that the donor could have been Kevin himself.

According to Baumgartner, “I just thought it was pound-for-pound an amazing joke” that, in the end, wasn’t cut because it was in poor taste or considered too over-the-top, but because the writers feared it might confuse viewers. “We don’t really have a storyline about this, or we don’t want to confuse people to think that it might set something up with Kevin’s baby. I was like, ‘No, you’re overthinking this.’ This is just a great joke. Yeah, this is a great joke,” he said.

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