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TV Show Drinking Game
Catchphrases, cold opens and cliffhangers - drink on cue.
TV Show Drinking Game
The Office Drinking Game
The **The Office Drinking Game** runs on the mockumentary format itself. Nine seasons of Dunder Mifflin Scranton are...
You watchThe Office
You needDrinks + friends
Triggers14 drink rules
Best with2-15 players
The The Office Drinking Game runs on the mockumentary format itself. Nine seasons of Dunder Mifflin Scranton are built from the same pieces - a cold open, a talking-head confessional, Jim's look at the camera, a Michael idea nobody asked for - so the show hands you the triggers before you write a list. Pick your rules before the cold open, then drink together as the branch does what it always does.
Where you start matters more than how long you play. Season one is six episodes of a colder, meaner Michael and fires slowly; seasons two through five are where the confessionals, pranks and 'that's what she said' pile up; and once Michael leaves in season seven, the biggest trigger in the game walks out the door with him. Plan a binge around that curve, and slot it beside any other TV show drinking game you already love.
How to set it up
- Pick your episode by trigger type. 'Dinner Party' is wall-to-wall Michael cringe; 'The Dundies' and 'Casino Night' are Jim-camera and Pam-phone heavy; the Halloween and Christmas episodes give every desk a moment.
- Put the Creed and Kevin rules on one person's watch. Their lines are muttered under the main scene, and the room will miss half of them if nobody is assigned.
- Decide up front whether a conference-room cutaway counts once or once per face - a Michael 'that's what she said' chain can be one trigger or four.
- Treat the supersized episodes ('Stress Relief', 'Goodbye, Michael', the finale) as their own night; two segments' worth of triggers in one sitting is a different evening from a 22-minute rerun.
The rules: drink when…
The heart of the game: 14 triggers. Read them out before you press play, keep the ones your group likes, cut any that would fire every minute, and remember that a "drink" is one sip.
| When this happens… | …you drink |
|---|---|
| Someone speaks straight to the camera in a talking-head interview | Sip |
| Jim looks or smirks at the camera | Sip twice |
| Michael says something cringeworthy and the room goes quiet | Sip |
| Someone says 'that's what she said' | Sip twice |
| Dwight mentions beets, bears, or Battlestar Galactica | Sip |
| Dwight says 'false' or lectures someone about the rules | Sip |
| Pam answers the phone 'Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam' | Sip |
| Kevin talks about food, chili, or his band | Sip |
| Creed says something strange or unsettling | Sip |
| Angela mentions her cats or judges someone | Sip |
| Kelly rambles about celebrities or gossip | Sip |
| Andy references Cornell or breaks into an a cappella tune | Sip |
| Toby appears and Michael reacts with disgust | Sip |
| Michael has a genuinely heartfelt moment and means it | Drink for 3 seconds |
How to play
Pick a Scranton era
Seasons two to five is the classic run: Michael, Dwight, Jim, Pam and the full trigger list all active at once. Seasons eight and nine bring Andy as manager plus the Robert California and Nellie stretch, which need their own rules because most of the originals go quiet.
Sip through the cold open
The cold open is the densest ninety seconds of any episode - a Jim prank, a Dwight overreaction, a talking-head to explain it. Count everything in it; the run to the theme song is where the game earns its name.
Track the talking-heads
Give one player the job of pointing at the screen every time the camera cuts to the confessional wall. It's the most common shot in the show, so if it also costs the most sips you'll be finished before Michael's first conference-room meeting.
Save the long drink for Michael meaning it
The three-second rule is for the rare beat where Michael is sincere - buying Pam's painting at her art show, his mic-off farewell at the airport. Once or twice a season, not once an episode.
Variations & house rules
Cold opens only
Short on time? Play the cold opens back to back. Each one is a self-contained prank or disaster - Dwight's fire drill, the Asian Jim swap, Kevin's chili - and the trigger density is higher than in any full episode.
Michael's exit
Watch 'Goodbye, Michael' with one special rule: every character who gets a private goodbye from Michael costs a sip, and Pam's run through the airport at the end is the one long drink of the night.
Jim vs Dwight
Two players each take a desk rival. Every time your character pranks, one-ups, or annoys the other on screen, the opposing player drinks. A cold-open prank resets the count.
Pro tips
Season-two Michael is the highest trigger density of the run: he cringes, Jim looks at the camera and Pam answers the phone in almost every scene. Season-eight Andy does none of these, so rebalance the list before you binge past Michael's exit.
'That's what she said' is front-loaded - it peaks in seasons two to four and almost vanishes after Michael leaves. Keep it at two sips early on; it costs little later.
The extended 'superfan' cuts on streaming push some episodes past 30 minutes with extra Creed and Kevin material - good for the game, but budget for it.
Drink responsibly: The 22-minute episodes and autoplay mean forty talking-heads can pass before anyone checks the clock - set an episode cap before the first cold open. A movie-length game adds up fast, so keep the pours small, water between drinks, and swap any trigger for a sip of water whenever you like. See our safety guide.
Frequently asked questions
Which episode of The Office is best for a drinking game?
'Dinner Party' (season four) if your group wants Michael cringe, 'Stress Relief' (season five) for the fire-drill cold open and the roast, and 'The Dundies' (season two) for a bit of everything with Pam's tipsy speech thrown in. All three fire the full trigger list, so pour small.
Does The Office drinking game still work after Michael leaves?
Only with new rules. Seasons eight and nine lose the Michael cringe, the Toby disgust and most 'that's what she said' lines, so swap in Andy's anger issues, Robert California's monologues, Nellie's schemes and Dwight running the branch. The Jim-camera and talking-head rules survive to the finale.
How many episodes of The Office can you play in one night?
Three or four 22-minute episodes is a full evening on the standard list, because a single episode can hold a dozen talking-heads and several Jim looks. If you want to cover a whole season, cut the list to Dwight, Michael and the three-second rule and let the confessionals go.
Does the drinking game work with the UK version of The Office?
Partly. The Gervais original is two six-episode series plus the Christmas specials, and the talking-head and camera-glance rules carry straight over, but the Dwight, Kevin, Creed and 'that's what she said' rules don't exist - David Brent, Gareth and Tim need their own list.
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