One The Office Stunt Was So Ridiculous, Steve Carell Refused to Go Along
The 'will they won't they?' plotline featuring Jim Halpert and Pam Beesly (which could just as easily have been labelled the 'when will they?' plotline, was one of the main threads in The Office.
So, you might have thought that when it came time for the two of them to tie the knot, that fact alone would have been enough to satisfy fans.
But the showrunners weren't so sure that the wedding alone would be enough. They needed more. So, they arranged for the wedding to take place on the top of Niagara Falls. And it was a two-parter.
In fact, there were plenty of ideas kicking around as to how it could be guaranteed to end up as an iconic episode – including Roy turning up at the last minute and making a desperate attempt to win back Pam.
Imagine how well that would have gone down!
And one bizarre stunt put forward was to throw a horse off the edge of the waterfall. Yes, some bright spark thought launching an animal to its death would help add a little extra humour to the occasion.
Thankfully, Steve Carrel put his foot down and insisted this scene did not take place. At this point, I imagine you're wondering quite how this would have played out. Well, the idea was that Roy would turn up on horseback.
I know, it's all getting a bit too much, but bear with me. Having been rejected once more, Roy was to trudge off and exit the church.
No doubt viewers would have been more than a little confused by this strange interlude. But, hey, that's comedy, right?
Subsequently, Dwight, who had become fixated on the idea you could survive going over Niagara Falls provided you're on horseback, would get on the horse and head for the edge.
The popular character, though, would lose his bottle at the last minute and jump off. With the hilarious punchline that the horse goes over alone. Oh, how we would have laughed!
Now, I'm not saying a horse jumping off Niagara Falls couldn't be funny. But in this context? Really?
But the showrunners were all for this particular ending at one point. So much so that they were having a horse trained for the part!
So, we can count ourselves lucky that Steve Carell was on set with a cup of forward thinking and a slice of common sense. Otherwise, the whole episode could have been hijacked by what could only be described as a 'horse crash' of an ending.