Two of the most oblivious characters ever seen on TV have to be The Office’s Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute. Neither of them ever seem to be aware of what effect they’re having on everyone around them, and just can’t internalize whenever they’ve done something wrong.
Their sense of comedy is helped along by the fact that both characters overreact to everything that happens, making any situation they’re involved in quickly climb into absurdity. Most of the show’s funniest and most memorable scenes can be attributed to one of them, and which character is going to be the funniest in any given episode usually goes to who was the most ridiculously out of control that day.
Dwight: Watermelon Baby
Even if you don’t want him to be, Dwight is always there to help. Things weren’t any different when Michael’s ex-girlfriend Jan was coming to the office for her baby shower. Michael being Michael, he’s nervous about what he thinks is Jan’s upcoming birth. He enacts, complete with a hospital gown, what he imagines the birth will be like, and insists Michael deliver the watermelon. After making sure Michael knows to make a secret mark to keep baby snatchers at bay, Michael drops the melon- which it turns out Dwight greased.
Michael: Anytime Toby Exists
There’s no real reason that Michael hated Toby so much - he just mentions once that he’s there to “Make the office fun, while [Toby’s] is to make the office lame.” In Michael’s world, where he feels like he has to be the center of attention and the most loved, it makes sense. Whatever his reasoning, his constant and frequently unprompted hatred of Toby is hilarious. His talent at physical acting adds layers to just how funny his reactions come across.
Dwight: The Bat
To start off, in a talking head earlier in the episode Dwight talks about how before he does something, he always asks if an idiot would do it and if so doesn’t do it. Fast forward to a little later in the episode, Dwight thinks it’s a good idea to open the vent in search of what he assumes is a bird - which is exactly what an idiot would do.
Follow that up with the failed chase and his falling for Jim’s vampire pranking, and it’s already funny. Additionally, he eventually succeeds by trapping the bat in a bag, with Meredith in it.
Michael: The Sexual Harassment Seminar
“Sexual Harassment” is one of the episodes that leaves you unsure whether you should laugh or cringe so hard you turn inside out. Michael is out of control throughout the entire episode, working himself into a frenzy because he thinks corporate is going to crack down on the office - and he doesn’t like how it will affect him. It comes to a head when he makes a vow he’ll never make a joke again - just for him to promptly break it when Jim sets him up perfectly for a classic Michael “that’s what she said”.
Dwight: CPR
Pretty much the entirety of the CPR training episode is a comedic gem, so leave it to Dwight to take it up a few more notches. After the typically dysfunctional staff manage to have the instructor declare the dummy dead, Dwight asks what they should do if the victim is dead. After he finds out the instructor doesn’t have an answer, he takes up his own list of what should happen. When he learns the dummy is an “organ donor”, he whips a knife out of nowhere and starts gutting it. When Angela screams after everyone is distracted by the recently ill Stanley, they turn around to discover Dwight has started to skin the dummy and is now wearing its face on his own.
Michael: Stitious
Some of Michael’s funniest times come from when he messes up and things just keep spiraling further and further while he tries to fix it in increasingly elaborate ways that just make everyone suffer instead of just his original victim. After hitting Meredith with his car, some other things go wrong in the office that day and he decides it’s obviously all because of a curse and looks into sacrificial animals. He manages to work himself into a tizzy like he so frequently does. It gave us the famous line - and not the only time he showed he doesn’t understand how words work - “I’m not superstitious, but I am I little stitious.”
Dwight: Fire!
Remember how Dwight always feels a need to help when it isn’t needed? This time, he decides to take teaching fire safety into his own hands. What better way to do that than going around, wedging all of the doors so they won’t open, and starting a fire in the trash can? Like he has so many other times, he creates absolute havoc in the office when everyone finally notices the smoke and panics. The fact that he can’t seem to internalize what he did wrong only adds to how funny it is.
Michael: Dinner Party
After jumping through hoops to make sure Jim and Pam have no choice but to attend, he hosts a dinner party with Jan at his condo - Angela and Andy also attend. The whole episode is cringe and laugh-inducing, showing just how dysfunctional Michael’s life is.
As the time at the condo wears on and on, his guests get more and more uncomfortable with how awful his life seems to be (mostly because of Jan). Yet Michael is so proud of everything and is even more oblivious than usual to what he’s putting everyone through.
Dwight: Crentist
Dwight seems to have spent most of the series with two opposing ideologies: the near-worship of Michael Scott and his desire to have Dunder Mifflin Scranton under his own control. He makes a move for it when Jan shows up and scolds Michael. He arranges a meeting with her at a diner and eats his breakfast in the most disturbing way possible while he tries to convince her his plan will work. Jan immediately calls Michael and tells him about the meeting, leaving Dwight to return to face Michael - who is desperate to make Dwight admit what he did. By the end of the episode, Dwight is groveling on the floor begging Michael to forgive him.
Michael: Threat Level Midnight
There’s no way to tell which thing makes Michael’s magnum opus better: that it took him ten years of work or that he intended it to be a serious film. The whole movie is extreme from start to end, but seeing so much ridiculousness played straight is hilarious. So many individual parts of it don’t make any sense at all - except to Michael. Take a look at the speed skating gunfight for one of the best examples of the nonsense it produces.