"Community" - brought to you by Hawthorne Wipes™!

tho you never know with this show

Dan's blog:

http://danharmon.tumblr.com/

Dan on the Indoor Kids podcast:

http://www.nerdist.com/2011/11/indoor-kids-19-save-points-with-dan-harmon/

Dan on other podcasts:

http://grandmasvirginity.libsyn.com/webpage/gvp-35-community-creator-dan-harmon-and-more-

http://grandmasvirginity.libsyn.com/webpage/gvp-24-dino-stamatopoulos-dan-harmon

Joel McHale on Adam Carolla's podcast:

http://www.adamcarolla.com/joel-mchale/

On Joel McHale's hair plugs:

http://www.baldcelebrity.com/joel-mchale-were-okay-with-his-hair-plugs

we already have three Childish Gambino threads

Not enough.

http://cdn.wg.uproxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/community-tv-guide.jpg

http://warmingglow.uproxx.com/2011/11/community-won-tv-guides-fan-poll

Hey they actually made Shirley interesting and funny!

She was always interesting and funny; just moreso now. The anime bit killed; like some of the best shit this show has done, it came out of nowhere and initially seemed like it was done just for the sake of doing it, but turned into an unexpectedly poignant moment.

^^^This. She's so much better not being a religous strawperson.

I lost my shit at the anime thing. Did anyone manage to catch all the text at the end of Leonard's YouTube video? I assumed our DVR was catching it and I could go back later, but it somehow got clipped in the gap between this show and P&R. Oh well, I'm sure there'll be a screencap up by tomorrow.

yeah i paused the streaming site and read it, had a pretty funny thing about paying late fees and wanting to bang juliette binoche but otherwise was kinda just lol leonard uses young ppl slang. i kinda assumed it was a spoof/joke abt chuck lore's vanity cards at the end of his sitcoms?

Thats what I immediately thought of.

i was a p o_O that they went to the dragonball z well of all places tho i think that made it hard for me to really have an opinion on this episode

jeff's whole monologue about the game of foosball finally being "complete" killed me

Nick Kroll doing ridiculous accent = above average ep.

that soccer ball gag...

I enjoyed this. Much like with the S1 ep where the two of them rip on Vaughn, I think the Jeff/Shirley combo is strongest when they both are allowed to direct their darker sides towards some idiot.

Then again, this is the only view of the two of them we have. Ah well.

Also, with the anime thing; I realized earlier this year with the My Dinner with Andre ep that I was prepared to follow Dan Harmon & Crew off on whatever road they decided to journey down, and that I had enough faith in them that they'd warrant it. The show switching to anime to deliberately highlight the dispute between two characters is another thing that makes me feel like they're deliberately swinging for the fences; trying to progress what an ensemble sitcom can do.

The Leonard gags were just awesome; another thing I like about the show is that each cast member has an involved offscreen history with Leonard(i.e. Jeff's talked to his son, eaten his mac & cheese, etc). Also that someone normally as deliberately nice/sweet as Shirley immediately switches to disdain whenever he wanders by.

Also, I wonder if the pizza gags were a deliberate reference to Yvette Brown being in those DiGiorno adverts

Come to think of it, Fat Neil has popped up in at least one pizza chain commercial, too

http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/5039/vlcsnap2011120118h59m01.png

Yes, and if you do a YT search of "leonard likes pizza", guess what you get

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/4802/communityanimufagburn.gif

i didnt care for this episode. it was too 'wacky'.

I wish there were a word for the pleasure I am feeling at your misfortune.

^^^^ I totally lost my shit at that joke

maybe it's a psychological defense mechanism but i thought this was a pretty avg episode and i feel ok about community going away. the jeff/shirley plotline was good but the annie/troy/abed thing didn't go anywhere. plus they acknowledged at the beginning that it's a hackneyed sitcom plotline and then went ahead and did it anyways.

well no, the hackneyed sitcom plot was attempting to replace the DVD, not inventing a burglary and pinning its destruction on their shoe-stealing landlord

xp - I don't know if I just love slapstick but Abed as Batman had me (literally) spluttering with mirth. The bit with the grappling iron was just hysterical.

xp to OH NOES - So true. I am laughing just reading the words back again.

Abed's Bale as Batman voice made all those scenes worthwhile.

Annie as Bale had me dying.

Troy being the voice of reason was also great.

http://twitter.com/#!/Leonard_GCC

I wish there were a word for the pleasure I am feeling at your misfortune.

― Ned Trifle, Friday, December 2, 2011 8:40 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

^^^^ I totally lost my shit at that joke

― OH NOES, Friday, December 2, 2011 2:43 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

thirded. to me that was the apex of the episode (that and the soccer ball bit)

the look on Jeff's face when Shirley revealed her foosball tyrant past was also amazing; they've been pushing McHale pretty far outside of his sarcastically inspirational box this season

oh yeah, even the week before when he weeped after getting fired from the Dean role in the commercial.

I kind of want this show to end this season -- it'll end at the top of its game, and we won't have to suffer lamenting "how bad the show got in later years" like with every other show I've ever liked :/.

"Sam, Ziggy says there's an 80% chance you can't leave Woodstock until you bone these hippies!"

http://i.imgur.com/e15Qa.jpg

xp I heard that, but didn't make the Quantum Leap connection until just now. LOL

Annie as Bale had me dying.

Yeah me too, 'this scene was a challenge for all involved' or w/ev had me falling about. Also the schadenfreud joke and the foosball man gag!

"Sam, Ziggy says there's an 80% chance you can't leave Woodstock until you bone these hippies!"

― kingfish sandbox bonaparte, Friday, 2 December 2011 22:15 (Yesterday) Bookmark Permalink

who said this?

it was from the tv that the landlord was watching

http://danharmon.tumblr.com/post/13675680180/crucial-update-on-my-bodily-functions

Dan posts about his stomach flu, goes on from there.

...Here’s a slightly less scientific but immediately present factor that makes me see very clearly that Community’s story is not over: you guys are fucking nuts, in the best way possible. And you are beautiful and kind and honest. And there is a magic emanating from you. You are in lockstep with a universal rhythm, here. You put our show on the cover of TV Guide BEFORE any of this was going down. It looks from a distance like we got yanked and THEN there was this pity party of clicking on that poll to make some point, but that is not what happened, I was there the whole time watching. First, you won us that cover. And TV Guide swore us to secrecy. Then, NBC rescheduled us. Then TV Guide came to the set and took the photos of the cast and swore them to secrecy. We were half wondering if the network would pull strings to kill the cover because, well, you know, awkward much? My point is that when I look at the timeline, I don’t see a boring cause-effect chain. I see a weird, ironic, poetic blossom of mythology. I see story points. I see the folds in the universal cootie catcher, I see an absurdly happy ending...

This episode was a good example of why Shirley is awesome and the haters are wrong. Glad they resurrected the dynamic of Jeff and Shirley as bitching partners from S1. I would happily watch more of the Germans as well, they need to pop up in an end scene sometime.

She's so much better not being a religous strawperson.

Quite like that the thing with Shirley is that she so wants to be a good person but she's actually meanspirited as hell, and that the group likes the honestly meanspirited Shirley much more than the dishonest Christian mother type.

Matt OTM

i love the pictures of her on the walls in the bar episode

haha yes, and when she threatened the bouncer into not revealing that she was a former regular

tbh, the thing that makes the hyper-judgy Christian persona work for me is the undercurrent of darkness that fuels it, generating sweetly smiled cruelty like her Halloween story

Also I watched an old episode of Curb the other week and the actress that plays Shirley turns up as an air hostess and I was genuinely weirded out to hear her speaking normally and not doing either her Miss Piggy or Samuel L Jackson voice.

She also does a voice on the utterly ABOMINABLE Pound Puppies cartoon, which I hate but my daughter loves.

http://j.static-locatetv.com/images/content/4/266418_pound_puppies.jpg

wtf, those aren't Pound Puppies, those are just regular cartoon dogs

children's television is a wasteland of unrecognizable '80s remakes as much as the summer movie season at this point

#puppiez

Works either way.

that podcast has just the worst two hosts.

lol, it has three, but two of them are completely indistinguishable (and both are more subdued verions of the main dude)

i am fine w/ no new community tonight because i really needed to see the stop motion ep again

xp wait there are three hosts on that podcast???

oh, you know, i made a mistake. it wasn't the nerdist i was talking about. it was indoor kids. can we plz spend a minute talking about how terrible indoor kids are?

Enh, I think they're okay, but they really need a Jeremy Parish type who actually knows game history, context, the diff between Western & Japanese gamedev philosophies, etc.

the Whitney hate itt makes me very...happy. one episode was enough to make me gag.

Dan himself does Harmontown every once in a while in the space that the Nerdiast guys set up at an L.A. comic shop

the Cheslea Handler love itt makes me very...confused.

Wait where are you seeing Chelsea Handler love, because I know it's not in my post

it actually subtly played to the character's total lack of connection to music

She didn't sing as badly in last year's Christmas episode though. I have to admit I'm still having some trouble with what they're doing with Britta this season.

In what way?

For one, it's a little hard to swallow since they've basically changed her character/personality type without really showing how this is some kind of organic or logical development of her character. (Annie's character has changed as well, for example, but it makes sense as a sort of maturation of her character. Same with Jeff.) Also, I just don't really find the new Britta all that charming or funny some of the time, especially when they go really OTT with her, e.g. in the model UN episode.

Because character development and continuity do seem fairly important in this show, it's a little hard for me to accept that the same character who grudgingly began singing the final song of last year's Christmas episode in a low-key manner is the same character who sang the "Me so Christmas" song on stage in this year's Christmas pageant.

I love doofus Britta but it's a clear case of Homerization. Also Warren Piece was a step too far.

britta is the best thing about this show

britta was the last holdout against the glee mania too though.

Still, her whole attitude was different and, like I said, her singing voice was completely different. Her sense of humour, the way she relates to the other characters have all changed (compare her interactions with Shirley and Annie in last year's Christmas episode.)

i feel like there's a totally logical contrast between the way Britta acts when she's a smug defensive hipster and when she lets her guard down and gets enthusiastic about things. it's what makes her character realistic and, more importantly, hilarious.

i just assumed the difference is that her character is high alla time now

haha that could be it too

"me so christmas, me so merry" was such a perfect callback to "me so hungy"

i feel real spergy questioning this but rly Even In A Heightened Reality who would do that. feels like playing to the people (not me!! I'm way 2 smart for this!!!!) who thought every instance of an Arrested Development character repeating a two- or three-word phrase that had occurred earlier in the series was an intentional super smart callback to another point in the gossamer web of narrative

britta saying "me so _____" >>>>>>>>>> newt calling for "fundamental change"

ppl do have their catchphrases, even on this very borad

i feel like there's a totally logical contrast between the way Britta acts when she's a smug defensive hipster and when she lets her guard down and gets enthusiastic about things. it's what makes her character realistic and, more importantly, hilarious.

I don't feel like she has been developed as a character with those two facets coexisting in her personality though. I feel like she used to be one and has now been turned into the other because the writers got a new idea or something. Maybe I can buy the always-stoned thing...

i dunno to me it fits perfectly in w/ britta's botched jokes going back to season 1

every instance of an Arrested Development character repeating a two- or three-word phrase that had occurred earlier in the series was an intentional super smart callback to another point in the gossamer web of narrative

it was

what the hell is wrong with you people?
community is AWESOME

OK, after watching for the fifth time or so, maybe you are right, Mr Stevenson. Britta does sing much more conventionally when they're carolling at the end so it probably was her getting excited in the pageant when she was still hypnotized. She might have even thought she was doing a punk rock or outsider-art improvisation kind of deal.

Also, I don't know if we've mentioned this or not but Britta really has no fucking clue what the words to the song are, she just knows them in her heart, as Abed said.

http://splitsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/308.jpg

OK, after watching for the fifth time or so, maybe you are right, Mr Stevenson. Britta does sing much more conventionally when they're carolling at the end so it probably was her getting excited in the pageant when she was still hypnotized. She might have even thought she was doing a punk rock or outsider-art improvisation kind of deal.

― EveningStar, Sunday, December 18, 2011 1:00 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

i have posted about britta but afaik i haven't said anything about the way she was singing in that ep

Yeah, I meant you were right about these things:

i feel like there's a totally logical contrast between the way Britta acts when she's a smug defensive hipster and when she lets her guard down and gets enthusiastic about things. it's what makes her character realistic and, more importantly, hilarious.

i dunno to me it fits perfectly in w/ britta's botched jokes going back to season 1

and I was extrapolating. It made sense in my head.

rendering the study group as X-men:

http://www.avivor.com/english/

http://www.jonnyeveson.com/

Inspector Spacetime posters!

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/387576_10150505268049617_103137454616_8585653_189104951_n.jpg

and the other: http://www.jonnyeveson.com/product/inspector-spacetime-poster

ok, i'll admit that's kinda great

I am watching the first season on Hulu and holy shit re: the April Fool's episode and the billiards episode

we just finished season 1 and yeah those are about when it hit its stride

Oh dude happy belated birthday!

thank you! i have been celebrating by working through three planned vacation days!

Sweet!

wait what is the april fools joke? is that britta and the chang frog?

Yes

I got the s1 DVDs for Christmas. I'd actually forgotten how much I loved those episodes, even before they went all high-concept. Just great humour, stories, and characters. "Intro to Film" is slept on imo. And I forgot that the Dean actually first blackmailed Jeff in "Football, Feminism, and You".

Brie does seem to overact a little in the early episodes. I wonder if she got better later or if she just became so hot that I wasn't paying attention anymore.

Also forgot that Abed became Batman for the first time in the Mexican Halloween episode!

I think Brie just found her footing w/the role and it just so happened that it coincided w/her bringing the sexy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WZ2hYXAocTc