To salute the 16th birthday of The Office – the British original – its co-creator Ricky Gervais has revealed more about the origins of the show in a new Facebook post. In it, he talks about the people who inspired The Office, and the characters within.

Gervais revealed that whilst the pilot episode for the BBC was made in January 2000, a “home made pilot” had already been done before that, that was filmed in the office he worked in between 1989 and 1997.

Where, then, did the character of David Brent come from? “I had David Brent as a character from about 1995 I’d say, and he is based on people I’d met throughout my adult life”, he wrote. He added that the first scene in The Office, where Brent talks to a forklift truck driver, “is based on an interview I had at a temp agency when I was 17, in the school holidays. He was in his mid thirties wearing a bad suit. His opening sentence was, ‘I don’t give sh—y jobs’; I just looked at him and nodded. He said ‘If a good guy comes to me,’ (he pointed at me to let me know he already knew I was a good guy), ‘and says I wanna work hard because I wanna better myself, then I will make that happen.’”

An idea formed, although Gervais noted that when it comes to meeting David Brents, “there have been many since”.

“David Brent doesn’t represent evil, or nastiness or even ignorance. He’s just a little out of place. Out of time. His worst crime is that he confused respect with popularity”, he wrote.

As for the rest of the ensemble, “the dysfunctional family in The Office had a lot of children. Namely the men. Men as boys and women as adults was a recurring theme. This is funny because it’s true”, he posted. “Men don’t really grow up. And a man who is meant to be in charge and a role model acting like a big kid is even more ridiculous. This is why it was important to always keep Brent in the work environment”.

Gareth, then, was based “on the kid I went to school with. I talk about him in most of my stand-up shows. He’s the one who put a crab in a pint of beer on holiday, because I told him, as a joke, ‘when a crab is drunk, it walks forwards’”.

Tim, meanwhile, “is based on a guy I used to work with, mixed with Norm from Cheers, a little Chandler from Friends, and a touch of Oliver Hardy. Stan and Ollie feature in all my work really. The blind leading the blind. Both thinking they’re with an idiot. Both right. Both struggling. And both needing each other to survive. Beautifully precarious”.

This is just a flavour of the background information Gervais has posted. The full Facebook post – and it’s well worth a read – can be found here.