A shipment of paper with an obscene watermark was accidentally sent out, and the group has to scramble to cover themselves.
- Air Date: April 26, 2007
Tropes
- Badass Boast: While recording his "threat video," Michael says that it would take a SWAT team to get him to leave. Dwight quickly points out that he would not be able to withstand a SWAT team.
- Call-Back:
- Michael refers to the crisis as "Threat Level Midnight," which is the title of the screenplay Jim found in Michael's desk in Season 2. Jim even gives a knowing glance to the camera when he does.
- Creed telling Dwight that he didn't meet Debbie at the paper mill because she had an emergency dental appointment—the same excuse Dwight used to leave the office in "The Coup".
- Captain Ersatz: While Michael describes the watermark as "A beloved cartoon duck performing unspeakable acts upon a certain cartoon mouse that a lot of people like", the drawing of the duck and the mouse he displays don't really resemble the characters in question (though Michael just might be dense enough to genuinely not know what the characters look like).
- Captain Morgan Pose: For some reason Michael puts his foot on the table in the conference room.
- Deadpan Snarker: Parodied by Dwight pretending to be Jim.Jim!Dwight: Blahhh... little comment.
- Did Not Think This Through: While the customer who rejects Michael's apology is fairly unreasonable in her refusal to accept his apology for the error and disproportionate in her demands for restitution, Michael should have probably made sure that any customer he was planning to offer a public apology to was actually willing to accept it before doing so.
- Digging Yourself Deeper:
- Michael's apology is not accepted, and every attempt he makes to rectify the situation is rebuffed.
- Similarly, when the accountants are drafted to help with answering the complaint calls, Angela predictably is rude and unfriendly, making things worse.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The client Michael speaks to refuses to accept their apology and their offer of free product (plus the refund for the paper already sent to them). When asked what would fix this, she tells Michael he needs to resign for this error, under the mistaken belief that he's the head of the company. Even when he explains to her he's only the regional manager and had no authority over the paper-mill, she continues to angrily demand he should.
- Dumbass Has a Point: Michael frets that the story about the obscene watermark will spread from the local news to CNN and then YouTube, somehow. His fears are dismissed, but quirky stories, even from small towns, do tend to spread and do often end up on CNN and other international news sites.
- Everyone Has Standards: For all his general posturing when it comes to dating, Andy shows appropriate horror and mortification upon learning that his girlfriend lied to him about her age and is still a high school student. He also insists that they did nothing illegal together (aside from knocking over a mailbox).
- Faking the Dead: In a deleted scene, the reporter recognizes Creed, saying he wrote his obituary. Creed then explains in an interview that he faked his death for tax reasons and has been collecting benefits as his own widow ever since.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: During Michael's "apology" filming, an entire cue-card worth of material is show that Michael doesn't read. As follows: "I need this job. My mortgage is hundreds of dollars a month. With this job I can barely cover that. I have a company car, but I still have to pay for the gas. Gas prices are high and I have no savings whatsoever. And it wasn't even me. It's so not fair that they want me to resign."
- Hollywood Tourette's: Discussed by Angela as her rationale for why a person on the phone kept repeatedly cursing at her.
- Karma Houdini: Not only does Creed get away with not doing his job as quality assurance (Which he's supposed to do weekly, but apparently hadn't done all year) and allowing the watermark to slip through, he gets someone else fired for it. And even pockets cash from the supposed goodbye card for them.
- Manchild: The central joke of the reveal that Andy has been accidentally dating a high school student is that despite the physical age difference they appear to be similar in terms of maturity. She apparently convinced him that she was a "part time frozen yogurt chef" (which may very well have been her after-school job) and according to Andy they did nothing together which would constitute a crime... with the exception of knocking down a mailbox with her friends.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Michael very bluntly calls out Creed for skipping his quality assurance inspection at the paper mill and letting the naughty watermark slip through, saying he "screwed the pooch." But this is Creed, so naturally he engineers things to shift the blame and become a Karma Houdini.
- Shout-Out: Kelly sings a bit of "Hollaback Girl". Andy sings "Drift Away" and "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".
- Small Name, Big Ego: Everyone assumes the Dunder Mifflin tainted paper crisis is destined to be a huge national news story, overestimating how much people might actually care about paper companies or Scranton. Michael calls a press conference, but the only media that shows up is the local paper's human interest columnist/obituary writer. Meanwhile, Dwight is confused when he learns that CNN doesn't have a Scranton bureau.
- Take That!: Michael describing Mickey Mouse as a "cartoon mouse that a lot of people like...I've never been a fan."
- Younger Than They Look: In the subplot with Jim and Andy going to the high school to apologize for the tainted paper that was used for prom invitations, Andy finds out to his horror that his girlfriend Jamie was lying to him about her age, and she's really in high school.
