The Office focused on the lives of the employees at an American workplace, but some viewers thought the series documented something much darker: a wild fan theory suggests that the employees at Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch were suffering from radon poisoning. The grim theory hinges on the character Toby’s repeated concerns regarding the office’s air quality. Despite the evidence, however, the theory is easily debunked.

The topic of radon testing served as an on-going joke throughout The Office. Toby Flenderson was concerned about the air quality within the office building on a number of occasions, but Michael Scott always blew off his arch-nemesis’ opinion. In a season 5 episode, a worried Toby suggested that Michael should use the surplus money to test the air quality for radon exposure. A season later in “The Chump,” Toby reinforced his concern and reminded his coworkers, especially Michael, not to throw out the radon test kits. A montage then played showing Michael throwing out the test kits. At first, he thought they were ant traps, but once he realized their true purpose, Michael got rid of them out of spite.

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The fan theory (via Reddit) suggests that Toby’s worry regarding radon exposure in The Office was warranted. The viewer believes that the Scranton branch suffered from radon poisoning over the course of the series, evinced by the altered personalities and behaviors of the employees. While the sitcom always focused on a dysfunctional set of characters, the theory attempts to explain why the Dunder Mifflin employees seemed to even wackier in the later seasons.

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The Office’s Radon Theory Explained

Radon is an odorless, colorless, tasteless gas, making it very difficult to detect without adequate testing equipment. The radioactive chemical can cause cancer for those exposed to the gas for long periods of time. The fan theory argues that the employees of Dunder Mifflin were unknowingly exposed to radon at the office. Toby, of course, fought for testing, but Michael always put a stop to his attempts. The theory further states that the radon built up in the building throughout the course of the series, and that the employees developed brain cancer as a result. The brain cancer, according to the theory, explains the cast’s ever-changing personalities, as certain characters’s traits became extreme by the end of the series, to the point of those characters becoming caricatures of themselves.

The theory then suggests that since Michael left the workplace and moved to Colorado, he escaped the radon poisoning and was able to overcome the effects, leading him to finally mature as an adult as seen in The Office series finale. Of course, radon poisoning doesn’t work that way, because he still would have years of exposure to deal with. Furthermore, radon is known to primarily cause lung cancer, not brain cancer. More than likely, the writers of the series wanted to adapt the comedy to keep the series rolling along, but in order to do that, they needed to develop sillier situations. The notion of radon poisoning probably never became a topic of conversation in the writer’s room apart from the long-running Toby gag.

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Kara Hedash
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Kara Hedash is a features editor and writer for Screen Rant. From time to time, she dives into the world’s most popular franchises but Kara primarily focuses on evergreen topics. The fact that she gets to write about The Office regularly is like a dream come true. Before joining Screen Rant, Kara served as a contributor for Movie Pilot and had work published on The Mary Sue and Reel Honey. After graduating college, writing began as a part-time hobby for Kara but it quickly turned into a career. She loves binging a new series and watching movies ranging from Hollywood blockbusters to hidden indie gems. She also has a soft spot for horror ever since she started watching it at too young of an age. Her favorite Avenger is Thor and her favorite Disney princess is Leia Organa. When Kara’s not busy writing, you can find her doing yoga or hanging out with Gritty.

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