Stanley Hudson

Stanley Hudson
First appearance	"Pilot"
Last appearance	"Finale"
Created by	Greg Daniels
Portrayed by	Leslie David Baker
Information
Nickname(s)	Stanley the Manly Secret Weapon Stan the Man Bo Banley Banana Fo Fanley Stankley
Gender	Male
Occupation	Sales Representative, Dunder Mifflin, Scranton
Spouse(s)	unnamed ex-wife Teri Hudson (ex-wife)
Children	Melissa Hudson along with another unnamed daughter (both by his ex-wife)
Religion	Roman Catholic

Stanley James Hudson is a fictional character from the US television series The Office. He is played by Leslie David Baker. Stanley has no direct counterpart in the UK series. His closest counterpart is Malcolm, as he is given some of Malcolm's lines in the pilot, and is frequently openly critical of Michael Scott throughout the series (as Malcolm was of David Brent).

Overview

Stanley Hudson is a sales representative for the fictitious paper distributor Dunder Mifflin. Stanley is a serious, hardworking, but a thoroughly grumpy and disgruntled employee so lacking in interest in his surroundings that in one cold open he fails to notice a series of pranks being played on and around him. Stanley dislikes and disrespects his boss Michael Scott. Stanley only thinly attempts to hide his disgust and disrespect for Scott, who affectionately describes Stanley's remarks as clever and sassy. Stanley, who is black, is constantly subjected to Michael's inadvertently offensive remarks based on racial stereotypes. At times, Stanley plays along with Michael's comments for his own benefit. In "Performance Review", Stanley tells Michael that he learned about women "on the ghetto" in order to secure a raise. Stanley has generally good relations with his other colleagues, especially Phyllis Lapin-Vance whom he often has lunch with. Stanley is a very laid back person, though when angry he has often been described as frightening. On one occasion, coworker Ryan Howard received a harsh scolding from Stanley after he wrongly suspected Ryan of "sniffing around" his daughter. He confronts Ryan Howard again in a deleted scene "Cocktails" when his daughter Melissa sees Ryan again at Poor Richards Pub. On another occasion, Stanley uses a lug wrench to smash Michael's car when Michael exposes Stanley's affair to the office.

Biography

In his younger days, Stanley was a member of the Black Panther Party. The photo that he shows of his involvement with the party suggests that he would have been one of the founders or at least an early member of the party. His involvement with the Black Power movement is later alluded to when, as a show of joy for losing weight, he raises his fist in the tradition of the Black Power movement. However, those days seem to be part of his persona which he has left in the distant past, as he shows little interest in politics and less interest than that in anything specifically related to being black (when a young guy who was the only African-American worker in Stanford arrives post-merger in Scranton and tries to bond with Stanley, it's made clear that this is not going to happen, ever).

Stanley sits across from fellow employee, Phyllis Vance. Michael often refers to him as "Stanley the Manly". Generally, when bored and unhappy (particularly when forced to listen to Michael), Stanley simply props his elbows on a table and rests his face between his hands in protest. Stanley generally prefers working on crossword puzzles during the various staff meetings rather than giving his undivided attention to Michael, earning him the nickname "The Crossword Puzzle Guy". He is also known for his enjoyment of Miracle Whip, judging from comments others make in multiple episodes.

Stanley's second wife, Teri (Joanne Carlsen), is white, a fact that confuses Michael (on separate occasions, at the Dundies and Phyllis' wedding, Michael has had to be told by an unamused Stanley that Teri is his spouse). He has two children from a previous marriage, including Melissa who visits the office on Take Your Daughter to Work Day. Stanley is a diabetic. He prefers that co-workers ask before using his condiments, and looks forward to the office building's annual free pretzel day, as evidenced by his comment, "I wake up every morning in a bed that’s too small, drive my daughter to a school that’s too expensive, and then I go to work to a job for which I get paid too little, but on pretzel day? (smiling widely) Well, I like pretzel day..." Stanley also likes Pam Grier, admitting she is one of the four things he absolutely loves in the world. The other three are his wife, daughters, and "a hot, chewy roll of buttered dough" (e.g. soft pretzels). The only moments where Stanley seems to enjoy Michael's company are when the two share pretzels. He also enjoys the cakes that accompany office birthdays, but doesn't like Oscar's suggestion that he eat a healthy apple to ward off insulin shock in their absence. Stanley used to drive a late-model Lincoln LS, and as of season three, he drives a white Chrysler 300. In the episode "Safety Training", Michael inadvertently bounces a watermelon onto Stanley's car. In "Sabre" Michael throws his aluminum water bottle out of his car, shattering the 300's windshield. Stanley says he is a Catholic in Fun Run and it was also hinted in "Sexual Harassment", when he states that his daughter Melissa attends Catholic school.

When not in the office, Stanley relaxes by enjoying some red wine (for the antioxidants) and watching television mysteries, though it's not clear whether he means non-fiction shows like Unsolved Mysteries or fictional shows in the CSI and Law & Order vein which he refers to as "my mystery stories." Stanley also seems to enjoy Todd Packer's jokes as he smiles when Todd comes and laughs out loudly at Todd's jokes in "Sexual Harassment". His general view is that he does not apologize unless he thinks he's wrong, which led to his divorce from his first wife. He bluntly predicts that this may lead to divorce with his current wife and even his next wife, but it seems like he is not seeking out conflict with his wife—merely stating that he won't back down from what he believes. In a deleted scene from the season 6 episode "New Leads", Stanley says that he fought with his first wife so often that she tried to poison him (although he does not say this directly), as he mentions that he started tasting something coppery in his dinner, and only when he started acting sweet did the taste go away.^[1] Stanley's marriage to Teri has collapsed by Season 8: in a deleted scene from the episode "Trivia", Stanley notes that he has $2500 in sales pending—sales he could easily complete and thus save Andy from falling short of a promised 8% quarterly sales increase for the branch—but won't do so because those sales are being held "until my separation is legal".

Character history

Seasons 1–2

In "Diversity Day", during a diversity training exercise, each employee is given a card with a specific race written on it to wear on their forehead, so they will know how it feels to be treated like that race. Stanley "coincidentally" (Michael's doing) winds up with "black", and is later pushed by Michael (along with Pam, who ended up with "Jewish") to delve into which group has suffered more historically, with Michael offensively saying they should debate "the Olympics of suffering: Slavery vs. the Holocaust" but Stanley only tells Pam "I admire your culture's success in America", which is much less rude than Dwight's stereotype-based comments to Pam. Later, in "Basketball", Michael recruits Stanley to be on his team, assuming that since he is black, he will be a good player (much to Stanley's disdain), which he quickly finds out is not the case when he sees Stanley struggle just to dribble the ball. ^[2] He wins the "Fine Work" award at the 8th Annual Dundie Awards, helping to warm up the ceremonies by joking that he does not know what to make of the "Great Work" award he had won the previous year, but states that he "guesses it's better than smelliest bowel movement", which is the Dundie awarded to Kevin Malone. He also takes his wife Teri to the awards. While very serious, Stanley occasionally does come around and lighten up (particularly with Jim's attitude). In the "Office Olympics", he becomes a participant, despite telling Jim Halpert earlier that his favorite office game is "Work hard so my kids can go to college." During performance reviews, Stanley offers Michael advice on dealing with Jan ("sometimes women say more with their pauses than with their words"), even going as far as to say he learned all of this "on the ghetto," in order to please Michael and possibly receive a bonus. His daughter, Melissa, develops a crush on Ryan Howard, the office temp, during "Take Your Daughter to Work Day", leading Stanley to yell at Ryan after a jealous Kelly points this out to him. Ryan later described this to the camera as "one of the most frightening experiences of my life." During "Conflict Resolution" he responds to Phyllis' claim that they are close with a pointed "We SIT close."^[3]

Seasons 3–4

Following Pam and Roy's called-off wedding, Stanley complains that he now has two toasters at home (one was supposed to be a wedding gift, but he could not return it because, after their long engagement, the store no longer sold it). Just about the only thing Stanley enjoys about working at Dunder Mifflin is the office park's annual "free pretzel day," which he looks forward to year-round, as revealed in the episode "Initiation." This is one of the only things he and Michael agree on and bond over. They both yell at Phyllis when it looks like she's trying to use Bob Vance to cut in line. In a deleted scene, they can be seen enjoying their free pretzels together. Toward the end of the episode, Stanley is heard saying, "364 days...until the next pretzel day." In fact, he is overjoyed when he hears that the office may shut down in "Branch Closing," because the pay he would receive from the severance package would be enough to allow him to retire and travel through Europe with his wife. Until the merger of the Scranton and Stamford branches, Stanley was the only African American employee (outside of the warehouse) and was annoyed by Martin Nash's attempt to befriend him based on just their shared race. Later, with Ryan and Phyllis, Stanley advised Martin and the rest of the Stamford employees how the Scranton office operates by saying "It only gets worse." He joins Pam and Karen's party in "A Benihana Christmas." He attends Phyllis's wedding but is happy about her six-week honeymoon and accompanying absence from the office.^[4] When he finds out about Michael's pitiful salary in "The Negotiation," he bluntly states that he still thinks Michael is way overpaid. He notes in a deleted scene in "Safety Training" that he is winning a lot of money because he bet on Phyllis being on the phone constantly to Bob Vance, and smiles as he notes that his co-worker's annoying behavior is finally paying off. In "Cocktails," Stanley once again chews Ryan out (and maybe more) after he sees him chatting with his daughter. In the season finale, Stanley sets the conversion of Schrute Bucks to Stanley Nickels as the rate of unicorns to leprechauns.^[5]

During the Rabies Awareness Fun Run, Stanley shows up at the starting line, but gets in a cab along with Creed and Oscar and heads to a local restaurant to relax as soon as Michael has taken off on the run.^[6] In a deleted scene in "Launch Party, Jim tells Pam that Stanley was an extra in the film, "Philadelphia." He is cold-called by Michael during Michael's humiliating telemarketing job in "Money," and Stanley berates Michael for bothering him at home and later tells the other workers about Michael's second job.^[7] In "Branch Wars," Stanley accepts a job offer from Karen, the Regional Manager of Dunder Mifflin's Utica branch, who reveals that he called her in a talking-head moment. It is later revealed that Stanley was bluffing to get Michael to give him a raise, and wonders out loud how Michael called his bluff so effectively.^[8] It was revealed that Stanley is diabetic in "Survivor Man." In "Did I Stutter?," Stanley snaps at Michael when he presses Stanley for input during a meeting. This leads to a confrontation where Stanley admits his disrespect for Michael, while acknowledging the fact that he can no longer speak in such a way to his boss; the surprisingly professional way in which Michael ultimately deals with this problem seems to finally earn a small portion of Stanley's respect.^[9] In "Goodbye, Toby," Stanley does not speak except in deleted scenes available on NBC.com. In one deleted scene, Stanley praises corn dogs with Oscar. In another deleted scene, Stanley said he has mixed feelings about Toby. Toby was helpful when Stanley had colitis, getting him seven weeks off for treatment, but was not so helpful when Stanley had an issue with his acid reflux.^[10]

Seasons 5–6

When the Dunder Mifflin branches take part in a weight loss competition, Stanley begins losing weight for his own reasons. He reveals that he took part in the Black Power movement and ends up losing seven pounds.^[11]

In Prince Family Paper, in giving his argument on how Hilary Swank is hot, he says he is trying to be more optimistic in life and that pointing out people's flaws is no way to live.^[12] In The Surplus, he also tried to suck up to Michael to get new chairs for the office.^[13]

In Stress Relief, Dwight's over-the-top, poorly thought-through "fire safety" drill caused Stanley to have a heart attack. He is later released from the hospital, under orders from his doctor not to become stressed, and gives him a stress monitor to help. He reveals that he would like to quit his job, but he thinks he is too old to find another, that he doesn't have enough savings to retire, and that he now feels "Like I'm working in my own casket." When he returns to the Office, Andy Bernard presents him with a wheelchair. Later, at a Red Cross CPR class, Michael tries to get Stanley to perform CPR on the dummy, but Michael decides he needs to show him the right way. Stanley decides that he isn't feeling well after watching Dwight gut the dummy. Later, during a pseudo-meditation session run by Michael, Stanley's stress monitor continually goes off when Michael comes close to him, revealing Michael to be the source of the employees' stress after the same thing happens when Oscar tries out the stress monitor. After the Roast of Michael, Michael comes back to the Office and roasts most of the employees, including Stanley, saying "Stanley, you crush your wife during sex, and your heart sucks." Stanley finds this hilarious.^[14]

Stanley shows some genuine minor concern for Michael in "Two Weeks," when he advises Michael that he should go to his office and start hunting for a job, given that Michael only has four days left with the company.^[15] When Michael re-joins the branch, Stanley joins Dwight's mutiny against Michael when he refuses to give back clients that Michael's new paper company had stolen in "Casual Friday".^[16]

The first episode of the sixth season, "Gossip", involves Michael finding out from an intern that he has seen Stanley cheating on his wife, Teri, with a woman named Cynthia (Algerita Wynn Lewis). Michael initially thinks the rumor was false, but Stanley confirms it, saying he's about to break the affair off. Michael spreads the rumor around the office, but just retrieves the situation, and it seems Stanley has gotten away with the affair, until Michael talks to Teri on the phone, accidentally calling her Cynthia, confirming her suspicions. Presumably, Teri leaves Stanley, who smashes Michael's car in anger. In "Niagara", Stanley gives the toaster originally for Pam and Roy to Pam and Jim for their wedding. He brings Cynthia to Jim and Pam's wedding, where he enjoys getting his behind spanked by his new girlfriend as he dances down the church aisle.^[17]

In "The Lover", when Pam starts screaming "No More Meetings", Stanley can be seen cheering alongside her.^[18] In "Murder", Stanley refuses to take part in the murder mystery game Michael sets up in the office. However he reluctantly takes part on hearing the game will be catered.^[19] When Michael has to go to a group of high school and tell them he can't afford to pay for their college education in "Scott's Tots", Stanley laughs out loud at Michael's suffering.^[20] During the office Christmas party, Phyllis as Santa asks if he's been a good boy, Stanley deadpans that he has only for Michael to blurt out a reference to his affair.^[21]

In "The Delivery", Stanley shows that he cares very little about Pam being pregnant, as when she goes in labor and Jim and Michael rush her into the elevator, Stanley notices it is 5:00 and makes them hold the elevator for him.^[22]

In "New Leads", Stanley, along with the rest of the sales staff, lets Sabre's new "sales is king" policy go to his head. When the sales staff acknowledges their cocky behavior, they plan to offer the non-sales staff some pastries and 2% of their commissions. However, before mentioning their commissions offer, the non-sales staff seem to be just happy with the pastries and they accept their apology, so the sales staff withholds their commissions offer. Stanley almost gives away that they were planning to give 2% of their commissions to them (since he walked in the room after the non-sales staff simply accepted the pastries), but Jim quickly interrupts him and covers up his comment. When Stanley figures out what has happened, he smiles and is glad that everyone is getting along again without having to give up some of his commission.^[23]

In the beginning of "Happy Hour", Michael says whoever does more push-ups than him will get to go home early. Stanley does more push-ups than him (with Michael saying in an interview that it's not really fair, since "[Stanley] has all this weight helping him go down"), and thus gets to leave. Later, it is shown that Stanley has placed dozens of his business cards in the Bar's lunch raffle.^[24]

Seasons 7-8

In "Nepotism", Stanley refers to Michael spanking the terrible new office assistant Luke Cooper as "Texas justice".^[25]

In "Costume Contest", Stanley accidentally confuses Jim's mug of orange juice for his own mug of coffee, but does not appear to notice the difference. This leads a surprised Jim, along with the rest of the office, to determine what else Stanley won't notice. Kevin dresses as Phyllis; Andy sits at his desk while wearing a tie with no shirt; Jim places a cardboard box with the computer desktop on it over Stanley's monitor; Michael wears fake teeth; Michael talks about a Dunder Mifflin branch on Jupiter during a staff meeting where all the employees except Stanley is facing a different direction; Pam wears a mustache; and Dwight brings a pony into the office...with Stanley not realizing any of those things happened. However, he does notice that the office clock behind him is five minutes slow, and that it's 5PM, so he immediately heads out of the office. For the costume contest, he dresses up as a samurai warrior.^[26]

In "Christening", he attends the christening of Jim and Pam's baby, Cece. At the reception, food quickly runs out, and he (and Kevin) become agitated. Michael tells them that if they don't stop worrying about what they're going to eat all the time, they will die in "about a month".^[27]

In a deleted scene from "Viewing Party", he tells the camera that he is irritated by the fact that he was invited to Gabe's apartment for the Glee viewing party.^[28]

In "WUPHF.com", he tells the camera "I want to own a decommissioned lighthouse, and I want to live at the top. And nobody knows I live there, and there's a button that I can press that will launch that lighthouse into space."

In a deleted scene from "China", he tells Michael that he's not worried about China's growing global power, only for Michael to say that it's not trouble for him because he's conditioned to being the under class, offending him.^[29]

In "The Seminar", Stanley is one of the speakers at Andy's seminar on starting a small business, but pulls out along with Phyllis and Dwight. Later, Dwight reveals that he talked to one of the attendees, a man who owns a golf supply business, and that this could actually be a good opportunity for the sales team. Stanley, Dwight and Phyllis then try to rejoin Andy, who refuses at Darryl's prompting. In a deleted scene, he tells the camera is that he makes his sales by meeting with a client, giving his pitch, and then staring intensely at them until they buy something.

He plays the Narrator in Michael's movie "Threat Level Midnight".

In "Garage Sale", He trades Dwight his $150 telescope for a Pie.

In "Training Day", he, like the other employees, sucks up to new office manager Deangelo Vickers.

In the cold open of "Michael's Last Dundies", Stanley screams at Michael and Deangelo to get off his property when they deliver his Dundie nomination early in the morning. At the Dundies, Stanley laughs at Michael portraying Phyllis as being an old, enfeebled woman in the opening video in which Michael plays various employees around the office. Later, Stanley is not amused when he wins the diabetes award. He also participates in serenading the soon-to-depart Michael with a version of "Seasons of Love" with altered lyrics.^[30]

In "Goodbye, Michael", Michael gives Stanley a small felt table (which has no balls) as a going away present. However, he's outraged when Michael gives Andy his client list. Later, when Michael calls one final meeting in the conference room, he tries to leave when Michael does his "Ping" character, only for Michael to hug him as he's walking away. In a deleted scene, it is shown that he has a fetish for Japanese hentai, which he calls "art".

In "The Inner Circle (The Office)", Stanley is seen doing his crossword puzzles while Deangelo is heading a conference meeting. He is not part of Deangelo's inner circle, but does not seem to mind the fact at all. Later, when Deangelo heavily injures himself and is sent to hospital, Stanley is seen in a grave expression shaking his head.

In "Dwight K. Schrute, (Acting) Manager", Stanley is annoyed by Dwight's heavily enforced management style, such as having a "honor system" for coffee in the kitchen. Later, when Dwight foolishly attempts to cover his mistakes by declaring that a full investigation is being held concerning who fired the gun in the office, Stanley says that everybody already saw Dwight as the culprit.

In "Search Committee", when asked by Oscar if there's a front-runner for the manager position yet, Jim (who's on the search committee) jokes that he is not taking the search seriously, causing Stanley to scold Jim that he worked for Michael for 15 years, and that according to his doctor, he doesn't have another 15 years left if he wants to maintain his dietary and sexual lifestyle (which he intends to), thus making the next boss his last. He tells Jim he would "appreciate it" if he took the search seriously, then dunks his half-eaten doughnut into Jim's coffee, pulls it out, and leaves the kitchen. Later, Angela loudly informs Stanley that she won't be able to invite everyone in the office to her wedding, as she wants to keep it to 350, to which he responds with a simple "I'll get over it".

In "The List", Stanley's new "thing" is that he pretends to help someone out by describing what to do real slowly, then yelling "and then shove it up your butt!". In a talking-head interview, he acknowledges that it's stupid, but it's what he's going to do. He is also on the "Losers" side of Robert California's list.

In "Special Project", when Dwight needs to form a team to go to Florida and Andy offers everyone in the office a chance to join his team, Stanley jumps at the opportunity just so he can go to Florida for a month without his family, referring to himself as "Florida Stanley" in the interview, and makes it on the team. When in Florida, he rents a convertible and hooks up with other women at night, appearing to be the happiest he's ever been. Jim initially likes hanging out with Stanley, but Stanley's adulterous actions drive Jim away. Stanley goes back to his old grumpy self when they leave Florida.

Season 9

In "The Target", Stanley along with Phyllis, agrees to cover some of Jim's duties when Jim starts working part-time in Philadelphia. He does so only after making Jim treat him to a sumptuous lunch of lobster and wine. In Finale it is revealed that after the airing of the documentary, Stanley retired from Dunder Mifflin, divorced his wife, and moved to a small quiet village in Florida where he's taken up wood carving birds. During Dwight's wedding he dances with Phyllis and tells her that he misses seeing her everyday. Stanley gives her a wood carved bird in her likeness as a gift.

References