Dunder Mifflin staff (from left) Meredith, Erin, Oscar and Ryan celebrate Halloween.

“Halloween should be a day we honor monsters and not be mad at each other.”

The author of these profound, thoughtful words? Gandhi? No. Martin Luther King? Hardly. JFK? Try again.

These words to live by were uttered by everyone’s favorite super-intelligent, super-special operative MacGruber, of course.

Well, not exactly the real MacGruber. More like Michael Scott as MacGruber, which doesn’t take away from the significance of the words.

In its latest Halloween installment, “The Office” continues a string of better-than-average episodes featuring Kevin as Michael Moore, Andy as Bill Compton and Gabe as a very-creepy Lady GaGa.

Sorry, redundant …

“Costume Contest” opens with the staff testing the limits to Stanley’s uncanny ability to ignore everyone and everything around him. Kevin as Phyllis doesn’t shake him. A topless Andy doesn’t distract him from his beloved crosswords. He does notice, however, when someone messes with the clock and he high-tails it out of the office at closing time, brushing past Dwight and his miniature pony.

Gotta admire the uncomplicated life of Stanley Hudson. The man loves his food, his puzzles and the occasional adulterous affair. He’s running the clock out on an incredibly insignificant career selling paper products and is anything but apologetic about his intentions on doing the least amount of work possible before hitting retirement.

He also has the best line of the episode. When Andy tells him he’s Bill Compton, Sookie’s true love on “True Blood,” Stanley says exasperatedly, “How many freakin’ vampires am I supposed to care about these days?”

Exactly …

The Dunder Mifflin staff is determined to win the 2011 Scranton-Wilkes Barre coupon that features $15,000 in savings that will go to the winner of the costume contest. Dwight is the Scranton Strangler — literally, to his chickens — while Pam’s Olive Oyl reminds Dwight of his mama. His apparently Amazon-like mama.

Pam laments her Olive being Popeye-less due to Jim’s refusal to be the spinach-loving sailor with the killer biceps. Flashbacks show Jim’s apathy when it comes to Halloween costumes, although last year’s “Bookface” was brilliant …

Lady Ga—, um, Gabe, announces corporate’s new plan to have drivers sell paper products to customers, a plan first proposed by Darryl and, surprisingly, scuttled by his boss. Michael, who says he has “egg all over my plate,” publicly apologizes to Darryl.

Michael is hurt when he learns Darryl “went over my head to go behind my back” and he first mimics Darryl, only stopping when Pam points out how bad things happen when he dresses up as somebody else. He then stages a Ouija Board standoff with Darryl that proves what an asset Darryl is to the company.

Danny invites everyone to his bar for a Halloween party, but Kevin and Andy are torn because they really want to go to the party with cool kid Danny, but they don’t think they should out of respect to Jim and Pam. Danny — whose Halloween costume apparently is Handsome Guy — talks to Jim and Pam and assures them that the past is the past. Pressed by Jim to find out why Danny didn’t call Pam back after two dates, Danny first says it was because all she did on their dates was talk about Jim.

Knowing that wasn’t the case, Pam pressures Danny for the real reason and he admits he didn’t call her because she’s, well, kinda dorky. Pam proves he’s wrong by uttering a strange sound and channeling Steve Martin, circa 1979.

While everyone is pulling out all the stops to earn the top prize — even Angela, who isn’t above showing off her, um, assets in pursuit of a remarkable prize that would save her all the time of gluing her coupons into a book — Oscar downplays the coupon book, pointing out that you’d have to “spend $200,000 on crap you don’t need to get the $15,000 benefit.”

So, of course, he takes home the top prize.

Although I think Creed’s dead-on impersonation of a mummy — the dead eyes, the blank expression … Brilliant! — should have won him first place, I can’t quibble with much else in the episode. We learned that Angela loves her coupons, how Andy developed his love of a capella, that the key to sleeping on a fence is to lie facedown with the post in your mouth and that Jim and Pam are perfectly OK with being dorks.

As are we, apparently, as we find humor in their utter dorkiness.