Comedy Central Removed This Episode of ‘The Office’ From Its Lineup – Showbiz Cheat Sheet

These days, movies and TV show episodes are often pulled from streaming services or TV networks when their content is seen as harmful or insensitive. Comedy Central recently sparked controversy by removing an episode of The Office from its rotation during a weekend marathon. Many fans were upset that the episode was left out. Some felt that it was due to cancel culture and that people were missing the point of the episode.

Newsweek reports that Comedy Central left out the episode Diversity Day during a weekend start-to-end marathon of The Office. In the episode, a representative from Diversity Today holds a meeting at the office due to Michaels frequent recitations of one of Chris Rocks stand-up routines.

Michael, in turn, holds his own diversity training. He guides his employees in a ridiculous exercise where they tape index cards labeled with different ethnicities to their foreheads. As usual, Michael is wildly inappropriate in this episode. He even does an impression thats so offensive it earns him a slap in the face from Kelly Kapoor.

Many fans were upset that Comedy Central omitted Diversity Day. They felt that canceling the episode was missing its whole point. One fan tweeted, Diversity Day is one of my favorite episodes. The entire show is based on a character who is oblivious to political correctness of any sort. Another fan commented, You cannot cancel The Office Diversity Day episode the whole point is to mock the companies that make sy attempts to boost diversity.

RELATED: The Office: Steve Carell Says Michael Scott Is a Pure Character for 1 Reason

Steve Carells character Michael Scott is notoriously ignorant and offensive. Arguably, thats the whole point. Still, even Carell doubts that a show like The Office could be made today. The climates different. I mean, the whole idea of that character, Michael Scott, so much of it was predicated on inappropriate behavior, he told Esquire. I mean, hes certainly not a model boss. A lot of what is depicted on that show is completely wrong-minded. Thats the point, you know? But I dont know how that would fly now.

Carell continued to explain why The Office wouldnt work today. Theres a very high awareness of offensive things todaywhich is good, for sure, he told the outlet. But at the same time, when you take a character like that too literally, it doesnt really work.

Its important to note that Comedy Central has not confirmed that they purposefully left out Diversity Day due to pressure from cancel culture. As Snopes points out, Diversity Day is not the only episode that gets skipped when Comedy Central plays marathons of The Office. For example, holiday episodes are often left out of the lineup. The outlet proposes that although its a stretch, perhaps the network mistook Diversity Day as a holiday episode.

TV networks have removed episodes from other popular comedy shows as well. Newsweek reports that Comedy Central has stopped showing specific episodes from both Seinfeld and South Park. Disney+ has also removed movies like Dumbo,Peter Pan,Swiss Family Robinson, andThe Aristocats from their Kids Profile. The platform explained that they did this because young children might not be able to read the content advisories added to these movies at the beginning of the film.

For now, Diversity Day is still available on the streaming service Peacock TV.

RELATED: The Office Blackface Scene Gets Edited Out for Netflix and Other Streaming Platforms

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Comedy Central Removed This Episode of 'The Office' From Its Lineup - Showbiz Cheat Sheet