Image: Community
In 2013, showrunner and writer, Dan Harmon, debuted a show called Rick and Morty on Adult Swim. A show about a young adolescent boy (Morty) going on sci-fi adventures with his alcoholic grandfather (Rick) to various planets, times, or just meeting new aliens. It’s basically a much more vulgar, funny, and, clever version of Back to The Future. The show is now well-renown as one of the most popular cartoons out there mainly in part to its clever writing and absurd concepts. But, before Rick and Morty is Dan Harmon’s earlier show that aired during NBC’s comedy block, Community. Airing in 2009, Community is a live action multi-camera sitcom focused around the lives of seven protagonist (Troy, Abed, Britta, Annie, Shirley, Jeff, and Pierce) and their insane adventures at their school, Greendale Community College. It contains just as much, if not more, cleverness and sharp writing as Rick and Morty does. In my opinion, I actually like it better than the latter show.
Recently, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve come back to episodes of this show over and over again. That could stem from me wanting something to laugh at while the world scums to the horror that is 2020, but I think it’s mainly because of how impressed I am by Community as a whole. There are episodes that play out as a normal sitcom that are mainly character driven and some are considered some of the best episodes of the series. Some of these episodes include Corporative Calligraphy and Remedial Chaos Theory. These two episodes are bottle episodes, which are episodes that take place in one space/room/set instead of multiple settings in normal episodes. This is not unusual for television shows, specifically comedies as directors tend to use this technique to save money and reduce cost on the series as a whole. These episodes are tricky because they’re only set in one particular space and have to rely on their characters the most in order to carry the episode. If the characters don’t work, then the episode doesn’t work. It is universally believed amongst the fans that Community is one of the best examples of creating compelling bottle episodes.
Image: Community: Remedial Chaos Theory
The episode, Remedial Chaos Theory, in particular is a great example of this. Not only was it nominated for an Emmy in Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, but it was nominated for a Hugo Award as well. The episode revolves around five of the main characters being invited to Troy and Abed’s housewarming party. The gang decide to play Yatzee to entertain themselves when suddenly the pizza man buzzes in to deliver their pizza. Unfortunately, the pizza man can’t come up to the apartment, so someone has to go down to get it. The main seven play “Nose Goes”, but everyone taps their noses at the same time, so Jeff, the leader of the group, decides to role a dice to see who goes down to pick up the pizza. The premise is simple until Abed mentions that by rolling the dice, Jeff is creating 6 different timelines. Once the dice is thrown and lands, the fun begins. Each timeline has its own uniqueness to it where the story changes subtly each time. Some changes are obvious, but others need a little more analysis to see why it’s so important such as why Britta gets mad at Jeff after he stops her from singing along to “Roxanne” or as to why Shirley is so bent on baking for the group. These timelines range from the darkest (and by far the funniest) to the best and most heartwarming. Again, I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone who’s curious to watch the episode, but it is a joy to watch and I highly recommend it even if it does seem like a regular sitcom.
Image: Community: Modern Warefare
Outside of its sitcom episodes is Community’s more pop-culture dedicated episodes. These episodes pay homages to various films, movies, books, etc. (such as Star Wars, Western films, documentaries, Lord of The Rings, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and more) and use them in unique ways that don’t feel like just fan-service. These episodes include the paintball wars episodes (Modern Warfare, A Fistful of Paintballs, …And a Few Paintballs More), the Dungeons and Dragons episode (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons), the Law and Order episode (Basic Lupine Urology), the video game episode (Digital Estate Planning) and so, so much more. As absurd as each of these episodes sound, they are known as Community’s most iconic, particularly the paintball episodes from the ends of seasons 1 and 2, which proved how unique and clever this show truly was. To sum them up, the paintball episodes revolve around the whole Community College playing paintball to win a coveted prize. This premise is simple enough until the game becomes literal war and the entire school is vandalized because of it. This leads to great action scenes and really good direction all around. In fact, A Fistful of Paintballs and …And a Few Paintballs More are the two episodes that got the Russo Brothers attention at Marvel since they directed those episodes (and many more on Community). So, you could say we can thank Community for giving us some of the best films in the Marvel franchise.
The reason why I come back to these episodes so much is because of how entertaining they are. It’s fun to watch characters talk to each other with jokes that have these small pop-culture references sprinkled in them. It’s cool to see them grow and develop as these lovable people who you want to hang out with. And it’s just great in general to watch a paintball war take over an entire college campus and then play a game of Dungeons and Dragons a few episodes later. This show is full of great character moments and some of the cleverest writing I’ve seen out of anything. Say what you want about Dan Harmon, but it’s hard to deny that he is good at writing his characters, a storyline, and a script that is constantly consistent and entertaining. That is an achievement in itself.
Comments