Trivia for
Office Space (1999) More at IMDbPro »

• Director Cameo: [Mike Judge] Stan, Joanna's boss at Chotchkie's. He's listed in the credits as "William King."
  
  
• This movie has gained cult status on video. Mike Judge has said more people talk to him about this movie than any project he has ever worked on. Also, he doubts there will be a sequel, due to poor box office.
  
  
• When Peter is in the meeting room, on the white board behind him there is a complicated flow chart titled "Planning to Plan."
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Mike Judge] [[water tank]: Visible through Tom's back door at the insurance-settlement party.]
  
  
• Gary Cole's character wears a large, gold class ring of the style that are common for graduates from military academies. This ring was originally a prop produced for the short-lived science fiction series "Crusade" (1999), on which Cole played captain Matthew Gideon. The ring was worn in every episode, and was supposed to show that Gideon was a graduate of Earthforce Military Academy. "Office Space" was the first project Cole worked on following the cancellation of "Crusade" (1999) and wore the ring as an in-joke, referring to his previous job.
  
  
• The set for Chotchkie's is actually the restaurant "the Alligator grille" in Austin, Texas.
  
  
• Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) lives in the "Morningwood Apartments", a reference to a frequent theme of director Mike Judge's "Beavis and Butt-Head" (1993).
  
  
• Chotchkie's gets its name from the Yiddish word meaning a cheap trinket or knick-knack.
  
  
• At the party for Tom (Richard Riehle) Drew (Greg Pitts) has a conversation with Peter (Ron Livingston) in which he lists all of the men that have slept with Peter's girlfriend Joanna (Jennifer Aniston). Among those he mentions is David Rennie, the film's editor
  
  
• Smykowski's Lawyer (Rob Newhouse) shares his name with Robert Newhouse, a well-known player for the Dallas Cowboys in the '70s-'80s. The team is based in Texas where Judge, the director, grew up.
  
  
• Chotchkie's is a take-off on the popular T.G.I. Friday's restaurant chain. The T.G.I. Friday's waiting staff wear striped shirts and suspenders adorned with buttons and name tags. The restaurants themselves are frequently decorated with assorted knick-knacks and memorabilia. A reference is made to T.G.I. Friday's when someone mentions "Thank God it's Friday" while at the restaurant.
  
  
• On Peter's personnel file, his address is shown to be 191 N. Lamar, Flander, IL 77070. (77070 is actually the zip code for Houston, Texas. N. Lamar is a popular street in Austin, TX where The Alligator Grille (filming location for Chotchkie's) is located.) His mother's name is Suzi Gibbons and lives at 11004 Marble Rd., Erie, NY 05452 (actually a Vermont zip code).
  
  
• The directory that the bank software virus is stored on is "C:/LR427/Virus_CDEF" CDEF is a virus that dates back to 1990 and affected Macintoshes. It infects desktop files and can cause system crashes, anomalous behavior, and printing problems. It is obsolete now and was mostly harmless. It should be noted that "C:" relates to MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
  
  
• The infamous "PC Load Letter" error that confounded Michael Bolton is a message that the printer was out of, or not recognizing the refill of Letter-sized (8.5x11 inches) paper. "PC" stands for "Paper Cartridge". Older model HP Laserjet printers commonly display this error. This error also occurs when attempting to print a non-letter-sized project onto letter-sized paper.
  
  
• The iconic red stapler coveted by Milton was created for the film by the prop department. They needed a bright enough color to be seen on film and chose red. After the film was released, Swingline began to receive requests from customers for red staplers. Having stopped offering red a number of years before, they made the decision to start offering the color once more.
  
  
• Artie Lange auditioned for the role of Milton.
  
  
• After the movie became a cult item, Mike Judge was offered a chance to make a sequel called "Office Space 2: Still Renting". But Judge said that he had been through enough anguish over the first one that he didn't want to put himself through the experience again.
  
  
• Began as a short animated skit on Liquid Television, Fall 1992. Directed by Mike Judge, it consisted of Lumbergh telling Milton to move his desk and then he takes his stapler, then Milton wants to burn the building down. This was later followed by the same on Saturday Night Live.
  
  
• While in the car to Tom's party, Peter, played by Ron Livingston mentions to Joanna that the Nazis had "pieces of flair" they made Jews wear. In "Band of Brothers" (2001), Livingston's character of Lewis Nixon assists in the liberation a Nazi concentration camp.
  
  
• Jennifer Aniston's character is named Joanna, which is Aniston's own middle name.
  
  
• The traffic jam in the opening scene was filmed on the Interstate 635 beltway around Dallas, Texas, which is notorious for its daily traffic jams.
  
  

Related Links