THE MINDY PROJECT -- Season: 5 -- Pictured: Mindy Kaling as Mindy -- (Photo by: Chris Haston/Universal Television)It's a sad day for fans of The Mindy Project.
The last episode of Mindy Kaling's show premiered on Hulu this morning, marking the end of a comedy era.
On September 25, 2012, the first episode of the show premiered on Fox, giving us our first glimpse into the life of OB/GYN Mindy Lahiri. The show spent three season on Fox before being picked up by Hulu, where it spent its last three.
During the show's first season, I was given an even further glimpse into the life of Lahiri and Kaling when I appeared as an extra on the season's seventh episode, "Teen Patient."
I was living in L.A. and had signed up to be an extra with Central Casting. When I signed up, I had listed volleyball as one of my "skills." I played in high school and had spandex shorts, so I still considered it a skill. On this episode, Mindy tried to advise a teenage girl named Sophia who lived in her building not to rush her relationship with her boyfriend. She then went into Sophia's school and talked to her volleyball team about the importance of safe sex.
When we arrived on set, we were given uniforms and once we were given the OK by hair and makeup, we started warming up our volleyball moves in the school's gym. The production crew then started setting up in the gym and soon Mindy appeared with Ike Barinholtz, who stars in the show as Morgan but also co-wrote that episode with David Stassen.
The first shot that was set up was Mindy talking to Sophia one-on-one while her "teammates" practiced their skills in the background. I had been an extra on a couple of TV shows before this, but since it was a smaller cast of people in the scene it felt more personal, which made it even more fun.
When it was time for Mindy to address the team about the practices of safe sex, we had the chance to see her comedy skills up close. And we were all in awe of her.
During the scene, we saw Mindy say the lines as they were written in the script. Then she and Ike would get together and come up with lines she should say in the scene while passing out condoms. Watching the two of them go back and forth, coming up with hilarious bits was pretty incredible.
Some of the lines were so funny, all of us had a hard time not laughing, Mindy included! In one of the lines from the scene Mindy told the team, "I'll tell you one thing that lasts forever."
"Friendship?" One of my teammates asked.
"Herpes," Mindy told us.
Oh.
When the director called "cut" we all burst out laughing.
After the episode aired, in Nov. 2012, that specific line from the show was made into a Tumblr meme. Every couple of months, without fail, I'll be reminded of my time on The Mindy Project with the hilarious meme above (I'm player No. 3, clearly not ready for my close-up).
Thank you, Internet. And thank you to The Mindy Project for six seasons of amazing memories.