Community, the tv show

I thought Harmon based Britta partly on himself

tbh I automatically assume that of all Dan Harmon-created characters

which is of course true of all writers but seems....especially true for him lol

The show also gets meaner towards Jeff as it goes. Also the S2-3 Britta was always latent in her character and, frankly, is funnier.

Yeah, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was a little over halfway through season 2. There's been at least one other reference to the D&D game in another episode besides the Pierce hospital one, but I can't remember which other episode. Funnily enough I think having the episode pulled actually works out in the overall tone of the show, considering all the other references to stuff we never saw (ala the clip show with clips that weren't ever in the show).

Knowing what I know about Dan Harmon now (and the fact that Britta was apparently based on his ex-gf?)I can't help but see her being debased for laughs

(though all the group are intended as aspects of his personality, and he had Feelings about Britta being disparaged by real people due to the degree he identified with her)

But Pierce was in the D&D episode, the whole point was that they're all making the guy Jeff insulted feel better and Pierce is just in it for himself (and reads the DM notes iirc?) and wants to 'win'.

There's a second D&D episode where they try and reunite Mike from Breaking Bad with his son?

Ah, he wasn't invited but then turned up and was brought in as an NPC of sorts before it went wrong.

I think Community was a perfect show for me in my early 20s, smart and funny in a smartass and self-congratulatory kinda way. I definitely don't vibe with it the way I did when it was on the air but I can understand why I liked it as much as I did. The first season of the show made such an impression on me, I still remember the plots/gags clearly, watching it again really felt like re-watching an old favorite. and then...

There's a second D&D episode where they try and reunite Mike from Breaking Bad with his son?

clearly my passion for the show had waned by this point, even if I was still watching it as it aired. it's all coming back to me now though...puppets? Paget Brewster? something involving another actor from Breaking Bad? lol

massive xpost from days ago but Freaks and Geeks is avaiable free on ALL-4 in THE UK.

Do the streaming versions of F&G have the original music? I read somewhere that when they first showed them in cable reruns, the music had been replaced with soundalikes and/or library music. This also applied to the eps that premiered on cable (ones that NBC declined to air), and it wasn't until the DVDs that they appeared with the correct music.

Anytime there's a clearance issue, the song should be replaced with clips from Crispin Glover's solo album

I don't know. I swear I saw an episode or two on Netflix about four or five years ago that had the original music in it, but of course it's not on there to verify any longer. From Apatow's comments over the past few years, it isn't available to stream anywhere and likely won't be given the costs to secure the music licenses and he doesn't want to sign off on replacing the music anymore. I'd be really curious to how this is handled in the UK.

Gimme a bit to watch from an ep and I'll tell you what music is playing.

It would be great if it was presumably cheaper b-list butt rock warhorses. Like replace most stuff with Bad Company and Foreigner.

I read somewhere that when they first showed them in cable reruns, the music had been replaced with soundalikes and/or library music. This also applied to the eps that premiered on cable (ones that NBC declined to air), and it wasn't until the DVDs that they appeared with the correct music.

All 4 keeps trying to force me to watch ads. I'll watch an ep later and see how it compares with what's listed on what-song.com

The Who ep was one of the cable premieres, so perhaps whatever I read was wrong? I do see in the imdb trivia that "Kim Kelly Is My Friend" (the 'too dark' ep w/Rashida Jones as a bully that NBC didn't air nationally) was edited for cable, but they don't say why (presumably for content?).

"Dead Dogs & Gym Teachers" was obviously Who-heavy (even though they couldn't have gone to a Who concert because Who didn't tour the US in 1981, and Lindsay's parents ABSOLUTELY would have brought up the Cincinnati tragedy, and the Who t-shirt Millie wears wouldn't exist until 1994), but there were also Who songs in at least one other episode ("Song Is Over", but I can't remember the exact ep).

I can confirm that on All-4, Bill makes a sandwich and watches TV while The Who plays I'm the One.

However, Boris the Spider doesn't play while Kim runs over the dog.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I just came here to say that really love the joke at the end of S5 ep 7 when Chang thinks he’s a ghost

...the camera slowly pans, Shining-style, over to an old black & white photo on the wall, closeup showing Chang and a group of people in period costume and then the camera finally holds on the photo’s caption OLD TIMEY PHOTO CLUB 2014

it’s very good :D

More Who as Bill eats cereal and shares awkward glances with the back to the future gym teacher (Love Reign O'er Me).

I'll stop now as I'm destroying this community (thread).

lol just got to 'Squeeze Box'

brb gonna binge Freaks and Geeks again

"Squeeze Box" was so great on there.

That bit was in the teaser for the never-happened NBC airing of the ep.

gillian jacobs is two months older than alison brie

*updates .xls

lol. just found it curious that one was playing a character roughly the correct age and the other a character ten years younger

lol i was just razzing ya. It is funny! I always forget that Annie is meant to be so young, her & Britta def feel the same age to me except when its specifically called out

and when annie’s age WAS called out it was usually in reference to Jeff & then i’d get that jarring UGH WHAT moment

She was on tv as Trudy Campbell at the same time so I definitely never thought of her as an actual teenager (she also didn't look it, no matter how infantilizing her wardrobe was). Which was fine because I couldn't imagine romantic scenes between Jeff and someone that actually looks like a teen, yucky

They kind of covered for her appearance by saying she'd had extensive reconstructive plastic surgery after going through a plate glass window at a party whilst high.

Didn't watch Mad Men, so didn't have a problem with Annie's on-screen age. OTOH they were sexualizing her even in season 1, tons of Jeff/Annie jokes on that wavelength

Debate episode is one of my favourites.

Just heard “Evil Woman” in the supermarket and immediately thought of the debate episode.

so good! i love that one too

HE WAS HORNY, SO HE DROPPED HIM. Man is evil!

Re: F&G music- Wikipedia sez some of the songs were replaced with generic music when reruns ran on Fox Family

I watched the S6 “We gave a dog a degree?” episodd and found it p funny esp everyone saying that line allthe time, it cracked me up

S6 so far not too bad! It’s not early season giddy heights but still v enjoyable & often funny.

at this point I’m thrilled at anything that is an improvement on the nadir of the puppet episode, my bar is maybe too low idk

oh and the s6 episode where Dean does virtual reality filing was also *hilarious*

Yeah, for me it's:
S2>S3>S1/S6>>S5>>>>>>>>>>S4

S2>S1>S3>>S6>S5

nah

I'd rate S1 higher if it didn't take so long for them to de-center Jeff and figure out who Troy and Britta were. Granted, to me the show's peak is the trampoline story.

rewatching s2 and it's striking what an utter over-the-top asshole pierce becomes. (the d&d game and the one where he pretends he's dying, specifically.) and not in a funny way or a way that can be reconciled at the end by hopeful music and shirley and annie going 'aww'

sort of wonder if the writers made pierce worse than necessary because everyone hated chevy? i don't feel like he needed to be this awful simply for comedic effect

By S2 they were largely writing Pierce's dialogue by putting things that Chevy actually said to his coworkers into the scripts. The plots were probably similarly motivated.

Even at the time the wheelchair felt like a device to physically keep Chevy apart from the rest of the cast as much as possible and he has way fewer scenes when he's physically in the room with them.

Even some of the study room scenes tend to film Pierce separately and on his own. Like you can just see in all those scenes where they're all supposed to be round the table together and Chase just isn't there except when he absolutely needs to be.

Granted, to me the show's peak is the trampoline story.

I've been rewatching the DVDs with the commentaries, and someone (I think McHale) talks about how Donald Glover and Matt Walsh (janitor who made the secret trampoline garden) would do hilarious improvs with each other. When he shows the swastika tattoo, "It's going to be a maze" was improvised. An alternate line for that reveal, which was Donald's idea, was, "It's the original U2 logo."

Ha!!

We made it up to the episode where Troy leaves to go sailing on Pierce's yacht last night, Season 5 was like an immediate uptick again in quality after S4.

Being able to binge these seasons made me realize just how much darker S5 in, and I don't just mean the tone. The color is more muted and everything seems filmed with less lighting or something. I saw a few reddit threads that mentioned it was due to the lower budgets by that point, but that seems to be a weird specific place for the budget to impact.

Back half of S6 is proving to be weird as hell

There was a great ep on Grifting 101 with Matt Berry guest starring, super funny

But we just watched Giant Hand/RV episode which was about as bad as you can get without puppets + singing

I saw a few reddit threads that mentioned it was due to the lower budgets by that point, but that seems to be a weird specific place for the budget to impact.

Production design overall takes huge steps down as the series progresses. It's probably that they were no longer lighting to make sure 43 background jokes were clearly visible on a fifth rewatch, than that they couldn't afford the same bulbs as before.

(Harmon paid props and design staff overtime out of his own pocket on the first two seasons, partly out of appreciation for the incredibly great job they were doing, and largely because his own constant rewriting and rewriting of the scripts meant that they weren't able to do such a great job on regular schedules. In the third year, he stopped doing this and bought a house instead.)

Interesting, that makes sense about the background stuff. Had no idea he paid so much out of pocket.

But we just watched Giant Hand/RV episode which was about as bad as you can get without puppets + singing

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, July 29, 2020 1:05 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

That was where I bailed. I was pretty hopeful up to that point, but this episode just felt so desperate. I never saw any of S6 after that.