The Morning Watch: 'The Office' Audition Tapes, John Ratzenberger Breaks Down His Pixar Cameos & More

The Morning Watch is a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fanmade productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows.

In this edition, watch The Office audition tapes featuring familiar faces like Seth Rogen, Bob Odenkirk, Kathryn Hahn, Patton Oswalt, and more auditioning for Michael Scott, Jim Halpert, Pam Beesly, and Dwight Schrute. Listen as John Ratzenberger breaks down his cameos throughout the films of Pixar Animation. And finally, hear how The Vast of Night builds tension through sound in a scene breakdown.

First up, watch some of The Office audition tapes from when the show was in development back in 2003. Seth Rogen, Bob Odenkirk, Kathryn Hahn, Patton Oswalt, Judah Friedlander, Eric Stonestreet, John Cho, and Adam Scott all auditioned for various roles. After you see their auditions, you can see the tapes from John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, and more of cast members who ended up on the show, now available on Peacock.

Next, though John Ratzenberger may best be known as Cliff the mailman on Cheers, younger audiences know him as the voice behind a variety of characters throughout Pixar Animation's films that have been made over the past 25 years and counting. He started out as Hamm the piggy bank, and with Jace Diehl he breaks down all the other cameos he's made.

Finally, after the year-end buzz drummed up around The Vast of Night, we thought we'd throw it back to The New York Times' "Anatomy of a Scene" breakdown of one of the movie's quietly suspenseful sequences. Learn how director Andrew Patterson uses both silence and a mysterious sound created by David Rosenblad and Johnny Marshall to build tension in the indie sci-fi thriller, and if you haven't seen this movie yet, go watch it on Amazon Prime now.