How do you make a show that is slowly declining in ratings magically become funnier and more entertaining in its possible final season?  Just add Will Ferrell.

Ferrell has signed up to be in NBC’s Emmy winning show “The Office.”  Ferrell will join Steve Carell for his final season, in a four-episode stint later in the season.  The dates of his episodes haven’t been announced just yet.

Ferrell will play a branch manager who arrives to help out the office.  In the end he turns out to be just as incompetent and inappropriate as Michael Scott.

“We found Steve Carell when he was nothing but a movie star, and we turned him into a television star,” the show’s Executive Producer Paul Lieberstein said jokingly in an interview with The Huffington Post.

They are hoping to do the same thing with Ferrell.  “We are proud to continue ‘The Office’s’ tradition of discovering famous talent, and we hope that America gets a good look at Will,” Lieberstein said in that same interview.

This isn’t Ferrell’s first time on the small screen though.  He started out on “Saturday Night Live,” and has guest starred in “30 Rock” and “Eastbound and Down.”

Carell and Ferrell are used to working with each other, as they are long-time friends and co-stars.

The two worked together in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” “Bewitched,” and on “Saturday Night Live.”  The duo will be reunited for three full episodes of “The Office,” then Ferrell will have a solo episode after Carell makes his departure.

Carell’s Emmy-winning role on “The Office” is winding down, and he has decided to leave so that he can spend more time with his family.

The show has not revealed Carell’s replacement at Dunder Mifflin.  However, in the same interview with The Huffington Post, Lieberstein dropped hints that if Will Ferrell wants the job, he can have it.

Amanda Graziano is a reporter for “The Patriot” and jcpatriot.com.