Before Mike Schur helped create beloved comedy series like “The Good Place,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Parks and Recreation,” he won Emmys as a writer on “Saturday Night Live” and “The Office.” The two series collided in May 2008 when “The Office” star Steve Carell hosted “SNL” and participated in a viral digital short titled “The

The fictional Japanese show starred white SNL cast members like Jason Sudeikis playing Jim, Kristen Wiig playing Pam, Bill Hader as Dwight, and episode host Steve Carell reprising his role as Michael — but everyone spoke Japanese, and the sketch included no subtitles.

Despite his time writing on Saturday Night Live, Michael Schur wasn’t a fan of one sketch parodying his work. After leaving the NBC sketch comedy show to write for The Office in 2005, he said the SNL sketch ‘The Japanese Office’ “didn’t feel right to me in some way” when Steve Carell and Ricky Gervais

It doesn’t help that people in comedy like to do things they deem “risky.” Pushing buttons is a big part of comedy. It works sometimes. Crafting material that is close to the edge can force people to look at things differently.

Live has always touched the zeitgeist — but did this parody of The Office miss the mark? One of the show’s writers, Michael Schur, thinks so. On the Dec. 23 episode of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast,

While appearing on the show, Seth Meyers asked Schur and CNN anchor Jake Tapper what their thoughts were about the short, “The Japanese Office,” and both agreed it wasn’t one of the top ones. “I worked at SNL,