Childhood Bullies Inspired Ed Helm’s ‘Office’ Catchphrase

You know you’re playing a great sitcom character if viewers come up to you and quote your dialogue to your face. Sure, Matt LeBlanc is definitely tired of hearing “How you doing?” from strangers, but you know that hearing it lets him know he’s loved. Sorta. Anyway!

The same goes for Ed Helms, who spent seven seasons playing Andy Bernard on The Office. And, as Helms revealed to Stephen Colbert during a recent appearance on The Late Show, he still gets people–even kids who weren’t alive when The Office premiered!–approaching him and asking him where Andy’s catchphrase came from.

The phrase is a rapid-fire, sing-song-y bit of scat gibberish that Andy peppers throughout his dialogue, and Helms revealed that it comes from a rather serious place.

“The ‘roo-doo-doot-da-doo’ that Andy says on The Office, a lot of people ask me where that came from,” Helms told Colbert. “It started as a thing that these bullies at my school would–after they gave you a wedgie or pushed you down or humiliated you somehow, they’d go, ‘Roo-doo-doot-da-doo!’ as a sort of, like, expression of dominance. Like, ‘I just owned you!'”

This reveal made Colbert break down laughing, because that is truly a bizarre thing for bullies to say after they own you.

“It didn’t make any sense and that’s what made it even more terrifying,” said Helms. “It’s just one of those irrational expressions. So I took that, and I made something positive. It became Andy Bernard’s expression of joy.”

So if you ever see Ed Helms out and about, I guess feel free to give him the ol’ “root-doo-doot-da-doo,” but don’t pair it with a shove or a wedgie. We’re all adults now, and that’s basically assault.

Where to stream The Office