Office Space’s Best and Most Iconic Scene Almost Didn't Make It Into The Film

Summary:

• Mike Judge’s Office Space is a 1999 comedy film which is a satirical depiction of the workplace experience.
• Several scenes in the movie prominently feature the use of gangsta rap music as a way of contrasting the hollow atmosphere of the office culture and the colorful lifestyle of hustling law-skirters.
• The production company wanted to take the verse-heavy songs out of the movie, forcing Judge to fight for their inclusion.

The definitive cinematic remedy for those affected by the office blues, the landmark 1999 comedy film Office Space was a box office flop but a hit with the critics for its hilarious take on the workplace culture.

Featuring a down-on-his-luck programmer who slogs through days of meaningless office work, played by Ron Livingston, the movie lampoons the inner workings of the cubicle environs and gets its protagonists into wild shenanigans for some quality laughs.

The sharp contrast between the austere and colorless office setting at the beginning and the loose cannon actions of the film’s characters further down the line are aptly underscored by the use of gangsta rap music, which was huge in the late 1990s.

The choice to put these songs in the film was deliberate, as the film’s director, the prolific funnyman Mike Judge, wanted to bring the energy of the aggressive tracks into the story’s proceedings.

This move was totally worth it, as audiences back then tuned into the beat of soundtrack songs like Scarface’s “No Tears” and Slum Village’s “Get Dis Money” that played in the film’s more irreverent moments.

However, the bosses of the film’s production company Fox (now known as 20th Century Studios after the Disney- Fox merger) were not at all thrilled with Judge’s concept for the film’s music and even tried to nix the use of gangsta rap in the movie. Judge claims that he had to stand his ground and go through a test showing of the film organized by Fox to get the music he wanted into the film.

Luckily, the focus group that was gathered for the preview proved to be chill with the profanity-laden tracks featuring in the movie, which was not affected by Fox trying to rig the game and having a stuck-up stool pigeon as the host of the screening.

In the end, Judge came through and managed to get the songs he needed into Office Space’s released version. One can say that Judge’s fight with the producers was a kind of rage against the machine in its own right.

If studio heads had their way, we would have never gotten the movie’s best scene to manifest. At a certain point, the protagonists bring the clunky printer from their office into an open field and go all out on the tree killer with a baseball bat, all while the tones of Ghetto Life’s “Still” blare in the background.

We salute Judge for taking a stand and getting gangsta rap into the movie. In the final cut, the harsh-sounding bangers on the soundtrack make the heroes’ attacks on the office boredom look that much cooler.