Community, the tv show

also Mordy I like yr thesis about the snark/aspie overlap — it's something that used to weird me out when I first started watching the show and didn't really 'get' Abed's character

Lost DVD joke was hilarious and also legitimately cathartic.

Wow that was genuinely moving. Love this show SO much

This ep made me realize how sick I am of Christmas culture in general.

I believe the phrase you're looking for is, ahem, "BAH HUMBUG"

yeah pretty much.

Christmas Pterodactyl

Just noticed that, right after "The End" on the TV they're watching, you can see the non-stop-motion cast in the reflection of the screen.

Lost DVD joke was hilarious and also legitimately cathartic.

Yes.

Such a great, and sweet, episode.

My favorite bit was probably when John Oliver skated backwards on one foot out of the Cave of Frozen Memories, such a nice touch.

agree that it didn't really bring the lulz but was very well made and entertaining

I liked the songs!

i thought this was kinda wack guys, sorry.

>:(

i did too^^^. I was disappointed.

Nice to find out which ilxors lack hearts.

i thought it was touching and all...but....

yeah yeah, take it to the "Bah Humbug" thread :)

did i miss something, why did they want to kick abed out of school?

haha

slow sad Christmas song

Bc of his psychotic break with reality xxp

hey my wife had one of those and no one wanted to kick her out of school. alhtough its funny because her delusions were about Lost.

Clay Britta hotter than clay Annie.

No way, Britta's clay counterpart looked like shit, the way they overemphasized her lower eyelids.

yeah it looked like they stapled some pastrami flaps to her eyes.

Wow, that's got to be the most ambitious thing any sitcom has ever done. I thought it was brilliant! Def. worth $3.50 for the HD iTunes download.

OK, the eyes were weird but Annie looked like some generic kids' doll.

I agree that it seems unlikely for someone to get kicked out of school over something like that though. And a little disappointed that the writers seem to actually believe that Abed is a bit mental and not just, you know, smart and confident.
xpost

Wow, you guys are actually studying the logic of this show now?!?!

I really liked the part where Abed was on top the train and Annie and Troy were helping him get away from the Warlock. It was like a dramatic moment where his friends came to defend him for having Asperger's because there is nothing wrong* with having Asperger's.

I was laughing a lot during this episode. Not because the jokes were abundant or especially funny. But because the "claymation" angle provided levity to everything - and there was so much good in picturing what the other people were actually seeing in the non-claymation world (the script compelled me to picture the real world throughout the whole episode and it was brilliant having to think about both worlds at once).

I especially liked the scene at the end on the train when Pierce opened the door to the front cart and you could see the study room (or whatever) behind him. COOKIES! And then setting the train's speed to 'Bjork' is just a great gag in general.

I also loved all the dialog between Abed and the Wizard/Warlock throughout the whole episode.

Also, the credits sequence was golden.

End credits, with the tasty looking clay food.

my beef with the stop motion was no annies boobs in the episode (and I dont mean the monkey)

episode wasn't very funny, but had some nice moments toward the end. is this now the most twee TV show ever?

watching this again and it's actually better the second time. more affecting actually.

how can you tell when it is affecting?

it effects me?

(affects me? its affect is transmitted to me? whatever)

feeeeeelings, Crazy For Feelings

While I did love it, and intend to watch it again to see if I love it even more, I'm almost beginning to subscribe to the position of Perpetua and other people who think the gimmick eps are becoming too frequent. This season is really lacking a clear narrative arc, and whatever it does have is getting chopped up by one-off episodes (FUNNY one-off episodes, but one-offs nonetheless). The reason "Modern Warfare" was so successful imo is that it took characters that we'd gotten to know well and then ripped them from the "reality" of the show and dropped them in a surreal location. Now, that seems to be the case every three weeks.

I'll shut up now.

did i miss something, why did they want to kick abed out of school?

the opening credit sequence with abed jumping on cars and then getting tasered by school security was actually happening in real life, presumably.

cut the non-thematic chatter

less coal, more sugarplums

only real problem with this ep (and it is at the conceptual stage) was the lack of actual alison brie and gillian jacobs. honestly can't tell how much my enjoyment of a poor episode of this show would be stifled by bad writing when those two are around.

^^

This season is really lacking a clear narrative arc, and whatever it does have is getting chopped up by one-off episodes (FUNNY one-off episodes, but one-offs nonetheless)

What's amazing about Community is that these are only one-off episodes stylistically. If you think about it, there's lots of character and plot development going on underneath the jokes - paintball had Jeff and Britta finally hooking up (the kind of thing most sitcoms would make an entire episode ABOUT), we learned a LOT about Abed's background in this Xmas episode. While I think the show could get "Finch dreams the cast of Just Shoot Me are Wizard Of Oz characters" quickly, they've done a phenomenal job tying together wildly disparate styles without reducing each character to mere shtick to do it. This Xmas episode had me lolling constantly and marveling at the way they kept two different planes of reality going at the same time, but also deepened several of characters' relationships to each other (Abed and Britta esp). I've been saying this is my favorite show since Arrested Development, but now I think it's my favorite show since The Simpsons.

I'm guessing the suits who ok'd this hoped they'd make it as ingratiating and superficial as possible, so it could serve as a jumping-on point for the curious. That it was so immersed in the reality of the show and not just blank xmas cheer is so flattering to fans. I love how all these episodes don't feel like attempts to grab a new, larger audience, but see what they can get away with before being canceled.

but to see what they can get away with, rather. and as for "a little disappointed that the writers seem to actually believe that Abed is a bit mental and not just, you know, smart and confident" - this is a guy who's spent every episode acting like he knows they're on a TV show. There are two possibilities here: he either does know he's on a TV show and this show is just a glib meta playhouse, or the character is more than a bit detached emotionally - deciding they're all on a special animated christmas episode when faced with heartbreak is actually not that much of a stretch. Also, if the writers decided he was "just" smart and confident, it probably wouldn't be too long Abed was our Fonz.