Brian Baumgartner, who played the endearingly dim-witted accountant Kevin Malone on NBC’s “The Office,” can’t escape the role that defined him for nine seasons.

He even recently appeared in an episode of the NBC drama “Suits LA,” playing himself. In the show, he asked his attorney to find a way to do away with the character so he could realize his dream of becoming an Oscar-worthy dramatic actor.

Loyal “Office” fans surely caught the inside gag.

In fact, Baumgartner has for years served as a happy ambassador for the beloved mockumentary about the employees of a Scranton, Pennsylvania, paper company. He hosted a podcast celebrating “The Office” and turned it into a bestselling oral history book. Kevin Malone’s famous chili paved the way for two cookbooks.

Many hit shows from decades ago have been embraced by audiences thanks to exposure on Netflix and other streaming platforms. But even among that group, “The Office” — which is celebrating its 20th anniversary — lives in rare air.

While never a blockbuster hit during its initial run that began on March 24, 2005, streaming has helped turn “The Office,” an adaptation of the eponymous British series, into an enduring pop culture touchstone.

The familiar cast members have ridden the wave, evoking their famous roles in TV commercials for Cheerios, Panera Bread, Bush’s Beans, Fox’s telecast of the 2020 Super Bowl and ATT Business. The show is being licensed for toys (Lego, Little People, Funko Pop! and Polly Pockets) and children’s books including “The Office: A Day at Dunder Mifflin Elementary.” Tickets for an annual unofficial fan convention known as the Reunion, to be held in New Jersey this year, go for as much as $400.

“The Office” continues to have a stylistic influence on TV comedy as well. Its faux-documentary style — reminiscent of Christopher Guest movies — became a template for other successful sitcoms including “Modern Family,” “Abbott Elementary” and most recently NBC’s “St. Denis Medical.”

While fans have been content to rewatch “The Office,” they will finally get a spinoff series from executive producer Greg Daniels.

The still-to-be-named series, set at a Midwestern newspaper that depends on citizen journalists, will premiere this year on Peacock.

The series will take place in “The Office” universe with alum Oscar Nuñez joining the cast. (Daniels, protective of “The Office” canon, noted that Oscar Martinez was the only character who did not have a life-changing resolution in the finale).

Baumgartner has helped feed “The Office” popularity machine for years, but he’s still taken aback at how much the show means to fans who have discovered it since it ended.

“They have an intense need to tell me how the show helped them through a difficult time,” Baumgartner told The Times. “A medical condition, a family issue, a domestic problem. It’s a very powerful thing.”

Even with its cringe-generating moments, often created by Steve Carell’s malapropism-prone Michael Scott, the familial atmosphere of Dunder Mifflin is a welcome escape at a time of political division and angry social discourse.

“In this fractured society, just seeing and feeling a disparate group of people who care about each other is rare, particularly in TV right now,” Baumgartner said.

While streaming services entered bidding wars for “Friends,” “Seinfeld” and other hit sitcoms of the past, “The Office” quietly outperformed them. Nielsen data showed it was the most streamed show in 2020, a time when more consumers were turning to Netflix, where “The Office” was streaming, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That demand translated into a big-money deal. Comcast Corp. shelled out $100 million to its own Universal Television unit that produced “The Office” to bring the series to its Peacock streaming service in 2021 — five times what Netflix was paying, according to people familiar with the deal who were not authorized to comment publicly.

The series is the most popular program on the service. NBC says the average Peacock viewer has watched 59 episodes of the series.

Peacock enlisted the show’s producers to create “super fan” episodes that restore material cut for its original 22 minute broadcast run-time (they are just getting to the ninth and final season). They have helped drive 1.7 billion hours of viewing of “The Office,” accounting for 7% of all Peacock usage.

“The Office” has also remained a staple of traditional TV, currently running on three cable networks: E!, Comedy Central and Freeform.

With cable networks cutting back on original programming, “The Office” reruns are filling up hours of their schedules. The show airs on more than a dozen international broadcast services.

The durability of vintage TV sitcoms such as “I Love Lucy” and “Friends” are driven in part by the nostalgia of fans who grew up with them. But some audiences flocking to the “The Office” are discovering as if it were a new show.

As streaming video gained audience, Daniels heard from coworkers on his other projects about how their preteen kids were watching “The Office” obsessively on Netflix which first bought the rights in 2011.

Being trapped in a cubicle and forced to deal with a buffoonish boss resonates with the junior high crowd.

“It’s like your experience in school, when the teacher is lecturing you and you’re unable to avoid it,” Daniels said. “Or the person at the desk next to you is someone you didn’t necessarily choose to be your best friend and you’re kind of stuck there.”