When it comes to altercations at work, there are none funnier than the ones between Jim and Dwight in The Office. After working together for more than nine years, audiences have seen Jim make a fool out of Dwight to hilarious effect, and the effort that goes in to them is seemingly a sliding scale.
Though the pranks have resulted in some of Dwight’s greatest insults, the beet farmer has rarely been able to get his own back, which is what makes the pranks that take such little effort even funnier. Surprisingly enough, the pranks that are off the cuff can arguably be much funnier that the pranks that Jim spends weeks, sometimes even months, setting up and preparing, which can often go down like a lead balloon.
Full Of Effort: The Pavlov Experiment
As Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, realized that he could condition dogs to expect food in response to a sound, Jim brill is rly tests that theory on humans, with the test subject being Dwight, of course.
As Pavlov trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell, Jim did almost the exact same thing as he gave Dwight an Altoid every time he triggered a sound on his computer. Jim spent two weeks working on this, and nobody knows how many times per day, and it was all for such a tiny pay off, as Dwight would just hold out his hand expecting an Altoid.
Spontaneous: Professor Copperfield’s Miracle Legumes
When the office throws together a garage sale in the warehouse, Jim’s best pranks of the entire series, and it’s made even better knowing that he traded these random beans with Dwight for a telescope.
Full Of Effort: Putting All Of His Items In The Vending Machine
Being one of the meanest pranks of the series, Jim removed everything from Dwight’s desk and put it all in a vending machine, then handed Dwight a bag full of coins just to get everything back.
It again seems like a huge amount of effort for such little payoff, as Dwight would just have his things back at his desk in a few minutes, and it cost Jim about $20 or so. Not to mention that he would have had to have spoken to the owner of the vending machine to get access to open it.
Spontaneous: Hotel Room Crime Scene
Just because they’re in a different state and not at the office doesn’t mean that Jim won’t rest with the pranks. This time Dwight really had it coming to him, as he screamed in people’s faces and even attacked them to wake them up in the early hours of the morning.
Dwight burst in to Jim’s room to wake him up at around 5am, only to find the bedroom a mess with the words, “It was Dwight” scrawled across the wall, followed by Jim falling out of the closet pretending to be dead. Jim said himself that he woke up at 4:15 and didn’t know what to do, so his mind immediately went to this, and it’s one of the most ingenious, spontaneous pranks he’s ever conjured up.
Full Of Effort: The Red Wire
When Dwight found a mysterious red wire connected to his computer, he obviously had to find out where it led. As it was planted there by Jim, Dwight followed the red wire all the way outside and up to the top of a telephone pole. Yes, it saw Dwight having to climb up a telephone wire to reach the end of it, but that means that Jim would also have had to climb up the telephone wire to plant it there, meaning that he literally risked his life just to prank Dwight.
Spontaneous: Everything In “Conflict Resolution”
When Michael starts listing off all the complaints about Jim by Dwight, it’s revealed that the audience don’t always see everything Jim does to Dwight. The list of complaints is filled with hilarious, spontaneous pranks that fans could only dream of seeing. Some of the pranks include paying all of his coworkers $5 to call Dwight “Dwayne” for a day, replaced his pens with crayons, and tried to convince him he was a murderer. It’s also the same episode where the staff have to get security IDs, in which Jim made Dwight’s ID and labelled him a security threat.
Full Of Effort: The Garden Party Book
As Dwight was throwing a garden party at Schrute Farm, Jim can’t let any opportunity go without a prank, but in this case he must have spent all day an night working on it, as he literally wrote a book.
Dwight happened to come across The Ultimate Guide To Throwing A Garden Party by James Trickington on Amazon and just had to buy it. This led to Dwight performing all sorts of strange acts as it said in the book, and though there are a lot of reasons why Dwight should never have been manager, his dedication and hard work really showed here.
Spontaneous: Turning Into A Vampire
When a bat is let loose in to the office, which results in chaos itself, Jim claims to have been bitten by the winged creature, and acts like he’s turning in to a vampire for the whole duration of the episode. It ends terrifically with Jim looking up at Dwight from outside and flicking his collar up like Dracula. Not only was it spontaneous, but it was also one of Jim’s riskiest pranks too, as knowing Dwight, he could very well have stabbed him with a stake.
Full Of Effort: The Matrix
After being shelved for close to eight years, another prank has come out of the woodwork after all this time and the war between Jim and Dwight rages on. The prank goes on for a good five minutes, as it sees Jim trying to convince Dwight that he’s living in the matrix.
At one point, Jim even says, “do you know how many people I’ve hired for this,” meaning he has put in a lot of time, effort, and money in to the prank. He even redesigned the warehouse to make it look like a scene from the movie. However, in the end Dwight doesn’t fall for it, and it can be added to the list of times Dwight outsmarted Jim.
Spontaneous: Stapler In Jello
Always falling for Jim’s pranks is one of the saddest things about Dwight, but this is where it all started, as Dwight finding his stapler in Jell-O in his desk drawer was the very first prank that Jim pulled, and it was also the most random and spontaneous. Though his pranks would go on to become more complex with more production value, none of them were as rewarding as this, as Dwight’s anger was unfathomable.