We Lay Community to Rest By Remembering a Few of Our Favorite Episodes

Community, the wacky, witty, borderline self-aware sitcom from the brain of Dan Harmon, has died. It was five seasons old.

Born in NBC’s Thursday night lineup on September 17, 2009, Community almost immediately garnered a cult-like following of viewers engrossed by the antics of various students, teachers, and staff members of a backward community college known as Greendale. Fans especially fell for the frequent pop culture references, meta humor, and likeable characters played by a number of veteran actors, including Chevy Chase, Joel McHale, and Ken Jeong.

Community’s ratings were never very high, and after the first season it rarely registered over five million viewers per week (small potatoes compared to the show’s other three Thursday night siblings.) However, its fanbase was insanely dedicated, and kept the weekly numbers consistent right up until the end. This was quite an impressive feat, considering the show lived through numerous shake-ups – such as the departure of showrunner and creator Dan Harmon, as well as actors Chevy Chase and Donald Glover – and even once had to be placed into a mid-season coma, but pulled through after a long and worrisome ordeal.

Community was the youngest of the four siblings, and is survived by only one: Parks and Recreation. Parks has been in failing health lately, but will reportedly live to be at least seven. The oldest siblings, The Office and 30 Rock, both passed away last year.

In lieu of flowers or donations, please just join us in remembering the best episodes of this outstanding series. Well, the cartoon or puppet ones at least. And for your consideration, we’ve ranked them from worst to best.

6) “Miracle on Jeff’s Street” (Webisode – 2013)

This one is barely long enough to call it a webisode, or to even include it on the list, but it’s animated, so here we are.

5) “Abed’s Master Key” (Webisode – 2012)

To get viewers amped up for new episodes during a three-month hiatus, the folks at Community released a series of webisodes in the middle of the third season.

In these three two-minute shorts, Abed became Deputy Dean (Depu-dean) and gained possession of a master key to the school, which he began using to do favors for his friends.

These episodes made for an entertaining few minutes, but the plot barely got off the ground in the short time span, and there weren’t enough jokes to make them especially funny. There were a few good lines, and a few flashes of the full sitcom, but the episode was just too light overall to carry any sort of significance. They acted as good way to get fans excited for new episodes, but aren’t going to be on the list of episodes to re-watch.

4) “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” (S2E11)

This was the first to air, out of all the full episodes in this list. It began with the entire cast in stop-motion claymation (though not really made of clay.) In the episode, Abed informed the group that he was seeing his world thusly, and they held an intervention for him to figure out the reason behind his cartoony delusions. Led by John Oliver’s Professor Duncan, everyone played along with Abed’s fantasy, including its musical moments.

The best line of the episode came from Troy: “Who taught you therapy, Michael Jackson’s Dad?”

This episode wasn’t bad at all; the show used the medium well, and it never broke from it throughout the entire installment. However, the songs weren’t very funny, especially when compared to the regular dialogue, and this landed it lower on the list than the other televised episodes. That being said, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to throw this one on during the holiday season – or any time for that matter.

 

3) “Intro to Felt Surrogacy” (S4E9)

Ah yes, the puppet episode. This medium was inevitable, the logical next step after three types of animated episodes. In it, the gang used puppets (made to look like them by Dean Pelton) in a group therapy session to attempt to determine why there was tension and awkward silence in the group.

The jokes flew rapidly in this episode (I really enjoyed the “square!” lines) in classic Community fashion. It basically felt like a normal episode, especially since it regularly cut back to the real human versions of the characters. The funniest jokes were puppet-related, showing that the series wanted to take full advantage of the medium. However, there was singing, and this turned me off a bit. Fortunately, the songs were funnier than the Christmas episode.

It also was a bit of a bummer when the group shared all their deepest secrets, as the episode suddenly but temporarily seemed a bit dark. But I can’t ignore the fact that this displayed an extra element of the series, and proved it is more than just a goofy comedy for geeks. Even though that’s totally what it is.

 

2) “Digital Estate Planning” (S3E20)

It’s hard to believe there’s an episode that ranks higher than this one, because “Digital Estate Planning” had it all. The humor was witty, the characters’ personalities were perfectly represented, everyone constantly bickered with each other, and yes – as Annie pointed out – they looked adorable in 8-bit animation. Plus, anyone who played Nintendo as a kid should love the nostalgia that the episode evoked.

In it, the study buddies helped Pierce navigate through a video game (“Journey to the Center of Hawkthorne”) created by Pierce’s father to determine who would receive his vast inheritance. Though most of the episode focused on Pierce being antagonized by his brother (which added a bit of conflict to the plot) it ended up being a meaningful and heartfelt episode in the end, without coming off as sappy or dramatic.

But most of all, this episode slid into the #2 slot because of the humor. The jokes were funny in a very Community way, as well as a way that spoofed video games, and had more visual humor than the claymation or puppet episodes. On top of all that, the plot elements (represented mostly by levels in the game) were hilarious. Annie killed a blacksmith, Shirley killed his wife, Abed befriended the beautiful blacksmith’s daughter, Troy & Pierce lost their clothes, and Britta was…Britta. It just worked.

1) G.I. Jeff (S5E11)

Hands down, without a doubt, this is the winner. It’s not only the funniest episode on this list, but also one of the funniest in the entire series (along with “Remedial Chaos Theory,” and the paintball episodes.) Sure, I’m biased due to my love for G.I. Joe as a youngster – both the show and the action figures – but there really should be no denying the success of this episode.

Basically the story was an overlaying of G.I. Joe plot elements on top of Community’s, and that’s what made it work. The animation was an exact clone of the classic TV show, but still sounded almost exactly like a normal episode of the sitcom.

In addition, the characters were assigned wonderfully, the dialogue was hilarious, and the plot’s heartfelt moment (Jeff coming to terms with not being a kid anymore) was brief enough to not kill the good mood.

To sum it up, this episode was everything I hoped it would be, and nothing like I expected it to turn out. If you haven’t seen it, trust me: it was spectacular. And now you know. And knowing is half the battle.