An 'Office' star called one of the show's episodes 'racist and insensitive'

Many episodes of “The Office” pushed the limits of cringe comedy, but one of the series' stars highlighted an episode that crossed the line.

Rainn Wilson, who played Dwight Schrute on the hit NBC comedy, opened up about the questionable “Benihana Christmas” episode from the show’s third season.

"Listen you know, the Benihana Christmas episode where Michael [Steve Carell] and Andy [Ed Helms] draw with a Sharpie on one of the Asian women that they've brought back to the Christmas party is jaw-droppingly, kind of horrific,” Wilson said on a recent episode of The Daily Beast's “The Last Laugh” podcast.

He continued, "And it's a tricky conversation. It's like they're clueless, and in their cluelessness, they're racist and insensitive, and they're always saying the wrong thing. And that's Michael, Dwight, and Andy — and Kevin [Brian Baumgartner] for that matter. So it's a show based around clueless, insensitive, racist, sexist people that kind of mirrors the United States in a lot of ways."

In the episode, office manager Michael Scott takes a few of the men from the titular office to a Benihana restaurant to get over a breakup. While at the restaurant, they meet two female servers, who are Asian, and bring them back to the office, but apparently can’t tell them apart, so mark one’s hand with a marker to identify her.

"You want to encourage it, because it's funny as hell, and it also kind of skewers a particular American sensibility. But it definitely goes pretty far if you dig deep," Wilson said. "Could it happen today? I think it would have to be very, very different if it were made in this environment."

“A Benihana Christmas” aired on December 14, 2006.