Fundraiser (The Office)

The series—presented as if it were a real documentary—depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

In this episode, Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) crashes a fundraiser and ends up adopting twelve dogs.

According to Nielsen Media Research, "Fundraiser" was viewed by an estimated 4.17 million viewers and received a 2.1 rating/6% share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49, making it the lowest-rated season eight episode of The Office to air.

Newly fired Andy Bernard arrives and tries to get into an argument with Robert, telling him about a rock opera he has written with the hero based on Andy and the villain being a heartless character who wants to destroy all music named Thomas Oregon (with the name being a thinly veiled reference to Robert California), who is "humanized" when he pees himself at the end.

Andy interrupts Robert's speech introducing the senator by volunteering to adopt the twelve dogs brought by the local animal society.

Dwight Schrute attends without understanding how silent auctions work: he believes that the purpose of the function is to guess correctly the market price of the objects.

[2] The episode features the return of the character David Wallace (Andy Buckley), former CFO of Dunder Mifflin.

[3] Wallace, who is also attending the fundraiser, reveals to Andy that after his firing, he sold his toy-vacuum invention "Suck It" to the military for $20 million.

[2][4] After Jim proves that Robinson is both still alive and playing at a local venue, Ryan tells him that he will be unable to attend because the opening band is Paul Anka, and that is "not what Smokey would have… does want!

Forcella noted "It has been four episodes now since the super team returned from Florida, and The Office still hasn't found its footing back in Scranton", and he called the outing "another lackluster effort".

[9] A review from CliqueClack was largely critical of the episode, calling it "worse than usual" and noting that the show had finally hit "rock bottom".

He wrote, "The thing is, I in no way felt like any of what occurred in 'Fundraiser' needed to take place outside the Scranton branch and that’s really why a sitcom should move locations for an episode – because the story couldn't function without it.

"[10] Screen Crave wrote, "Those viewers of The Office that have scolded the show throughout the season for its varying degrees of sucking, are not likely to be changing their thinking after watching the latest episode.