We Didn't See Michael Scott

The week before Christmas we found ourselves about 30 minutes outside of Scranton, PA and decided to make the trek into town to visit the home of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company as seen on the hit NBC show The Office. Now, I wouldn't consider myself a huge Office fan, but I do watch the show every week and I had heard that even though the show is filmed in LA, the real town of Scranton has sort of embraced their celebrity status and a had a few sites for Office fans to check out. Since none of the shows I'm ever really into reach that sort of status, I though it would be cool to check out the sights of Scranton. (Until they build an Alf Amusement Park or a Family Ties Museum in Columbus, I'll take Scranton.)

The Scranton Welcomes You sign (pictured above) is the actual prop used in the opening of the show.

We actually didn't tour much of the city of Scranton, but instead made out way to The Mall at Steamtown, which is a pretty average mall on the inside but it's inside what appears to be an old train station. The mall also has a pretty interesting parking garage where you can enter the department stores underground. In the food court (which features not only a Nathan's but also an Arthur Treacher's) there are advertisements for various local businesses including Dunder Mifflin, Inc.

The mall's center court was hosting Santa Claus. Around the giant Christmas tree were cutouts of two characters from the show, Kevin...

...and Angela.

Here we are outside the mall...

Here's the advertised Dunder Mifflin Store, which was actually only a cart...

Well played, Scranton Mall! Ok, so there is a Flintstone's Bedrock City Theme Park that I may have been to before in South Dakota, and I may have also considered taking a trip to Vermont to stay at the Inn used in the exterior shots of Newhart. But, this Office stuff was all pretty cool too!