Stanley Hudson
Stanley Hudson is a fictional character in the American television mockumentary The Office, played by Leslie David Baker. In the show, he is a sales representative at the fictional paper distribution company Dunder Mifflin. Stanley has no direct counterpart in the British series.
| Stanley Hudson | |
|---|---|
| The Office character | |
 Leslie David Baker as Stanley Hudson | |
| First appearance | "Pilot" (2005) |
| Last appearance | "Finale" (2013) |
| Created by | Greg Daniels
Ricky Gervais Stephen Merchant |
| Portrayed by | Leslie David Baker |
| In-universe information | |
| Nicknames |
|
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Sales Representative, Dunder Mifflin, Scranton, Pennsylvania (retired) |
| Family | Lucky Hudson (nephew) |
| Significant others |
|
| Children | 2; including Melissa Hudson |
| Nationality | American |
In July 2020, Baker launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of a pilot for Uncle Stan, a proposed spin-off series of The Office focusing on Stanley as he moves to Los Angeles, California to help his widowed nephew Lucky run his failing motorcycle repair/flower shop.[1][2][3]
Biography
Stanley Hudson is portrayed as a serious, perpetually grumpy and disgruntled employee. Stanley is known for his laziness, most evident by him working on crossword puzzles during work and the various staff meetings. He is also characterized by his general distaste for his job and life, with his ultimate goal being to retire.
Stanley has generally good relations with most of his colleagues, especially Phyllis Vance, with whom he shares a desk cluster and often has lunch. However, Stanley dislikes his boss, Michael Scott, who often comments on Stanley's African American heritage and clientele. Stanley only thinly attempts to hide his disgust and disrespect for Michael, but rarely opposes him directly.
Stanley's second wife is Teri (Joanne Carlsen). He has two children from a previous marriage, including Melissa, who visits the office on Take Your Daughter to Work Day. He is a diabetic.
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. Michael assigns Stanley "black", and later pushes him to delve into which group has suffered more historically. In “The Dundies” Stanley wins the "Fine Work" award at the 8th Annual Dundie Awards. He also takes Teri to the awards. In “Office Olympics", Stanley 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 receive a bonus. 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 describes this to the camera as "one of the most frightening experiences of my life."
Seasons 3–4
Stanley appears overjoyed when he hears that the office will shut down in "Branch Closing," When he finds out about Michael's pitiful salary in "The Negotiation," he bluntly states that he still thinks Michael is way overpaid.
In "Branch Wars," Stanley accepts a job offer from Karen, the Regional Manager of Dunder Mifflin's Utica branch, revealing in a talking-head moment that he called her. It is later revealed that Stanley was bluffing to get Michael to give him a raise. In "Did I Stutter?," Stanley snaps at Michael when pressed for input during a meeting. Stanley subsequently tells Michael that he does not respect him, but acknowledges that he cannot speak that way to his boss.[4]
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.[5]
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.[6]
In Stress Relief, Dwight's over-the-top "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.
Stanley shows 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.[7] In "Casual Friday,” when Michael re-joins the branch, Stanley joins Dwight's mutiny against Michael, when he refuses to give back the clients the Michael Scott Paper company has stolen.
"Gossip" involves Michael finding out from an intern that he has seen Stanley cheating Teri with a woman named Cynthia (Algerita Wynn Lewis). Michael, in a failed attempt to cover for Stanley, subsequently reveals to Teri that Stanley has the affair, and a furious Stanley smashes Michael's car with a lug wrench; he then begins dating Cynthia directly. In "Niagara", Stanley gives the toaster originally for Pam and Roy to Pam and Jim for their wedding.
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.[8]
Seasons 7–8
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. Stanley did not realize any of those things happened. However, he does notice that the office clock behind him is five minutes slow, and that it's actually 5 p.m., so he immediately heads out of the office.
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."
He plays the Narrator in Michael's movie "Threat Level Midnight".
In "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.[9]
In "Special Project", when Dwight needs to form a team to go to Florida, 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 quite happy. Jim initially likes hanging out with Stanley, but Stanley's actions drive Jim away. Stanley goes back to his old grumpy self when they leave Florida.
Season 9
In "The Target", Stanley and Phyllis agree 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 every day. Stanley gives her a wood carved bird in her likeness as a gift.
References
- https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/the-office-spin-off-tease-stanley-hudson/
- https://www.eonline.com/news/1167226/the-office-s-leslie-david-baker-has-a-kickstarter-for-uncle-stan-series
- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/unclestan/uncle-stan
- Episode "Did I Stutter?"
- Episode "Weight Loss"
- Episode "Prince Family Paper"
- Episode "Two Weeks"
- Episode "New Leads"
- Episode "Michael's Last Dundies"