Celebrity crush: Ellie Kemper (revised)

This week's revised entry features one of the best latter-day additions to The Office (U.S.). Amazon and iTunes links follow. Any affiliate payments earned from your purchase or rental will help pay the hosting fees for my podcasts, so please consider clicking.

I'd fight over her, I admit.

Name: Ellie Kemper (images | Funny or Die videos | Twitter)
Hometown: St. Louis, according to her Wikipedia entry.
Best Known For: Easily her biggest screen credit to date is playing Kelly "Erin" Hannon, the new secretary on The Office (U.S.). She joined the cast in season five after fellow celebrity crush Jenna Fischer's character, Pam, temporarily left Dunder-Mifflin to work at a competitor, the short-lived Michael Scott Paper Co. When Pam returned as a saleswoman, Erin stayed on as secretary.

Her role has expanded since then as a love interest for paper salesman Andy (played by former Daily Show regular Ed Helms), now in a love triangle also involving new arrival Gabe (played by Upright Citizens Brigade veteran Zach Woods).

Humble Beginnings: Most of Kemper's work before The Office has been in sketch comedy and online humor sites including Funny or Die, but she's also done some TV commercials, appeared in sketches on Conan O'Brien's show and appeared on The Colbert Report.

Kemper's also written for comedy newspaper The Onion, literary journal McSweeney's, and news site The Huffington Post. And in high school, one of her teachers -- and a co-star in a play -- was Jon Hamm, now a superstar based on his work on the period drama Mad Men.

Obligatory Edgy Stuff: Among her online comedy efforts is a video titled "Blowjob Girl" (no nudity, but if the title alone doesn't tell you it's NSFW, you might not need to be using the Internet without guidance).

And in The Office's sixth season episode "Niagara" (featuring Jim and Pam's wedding), there's a bit near the end that does a takeoff on the viral video JK Wedding Entrance, and Erin does a little twirl that sends her skirt flying up for a fraction of a second. Ye Olde Podcaster MAY have watched that clip more than once trying to figure out whether Erin was going commando at the wedding.

(No, he never arrived at a fully satisfying answer to that question. But the research was its own reward.)

Why Ye Olde Podcaster Likes Her: In her short time on The Office, Kemper has managed to create in Erin a character who's a mass of contradictions -- sometimes sweet, sometimes a little bit catty out of jealousy toward Pam, sometimes appearing naive but at other times a bit naughty, often culturally uninformed in such a way that her lack of knowledge is sublime.

(Erin isn't quite as vapid as Brittany on Glee, but I think they fail to read a lot of the same books and newspapers.)

She's cute and sexy, sure. But in the world of comedy, you have to be able to bring The Funny first and foremost, and she's holding her own admirably for someone who's joined one of the leading TV comedies this far into its run.

With Office co-star Mindy Kaling at a photo shoot for
Paper magazine's "Most Beautiful People" article.

Film and TV-movie credits: Bridesmaids (Amazon | iTunes) * Somewhere (Amazon | iTunes) * Get Him to the Greek (Amazon | iTunes) * Cayman Went (Amazon | iTunes) * Mystery Team (Amazon | iTunes) * Redeeming Rainbow (Amazon | iTunes)
TV and Web series credits: The Office, season 7 (Amazon | iTunes) * The Office: Digital Shorts Collection (Amazon | iTunes) * Important Things With Demitri Martin, season 2: "2" (Amazon | iTunes) * The Office, season 6 (Amazon | iTunes) * Important Things With Demitri Martin, season 1: "Games" (Amazon | iTunes) * The Office, season 5 (Amazon | iTunes)