[Johan van der Groep]

Originally Posted by escape goat

is it just me, or is there a bit of a layer of hilarity to the episode being centered entirely around some yams, and starburns' is just a tag?

It was Annie's doing again, afraid for a C. The rest of the study group enjoyed the fun. There were a lot of relativating remarks indeed. I liked 'I want to watch Mama's family' best, as it makes fun of the whole movie referencinig througout the series.

Weren't you annoyed by the diminutive remarks about the soldiers in Iraq? The way Todd's heroic deed was described, and especially that Kane compared his prisonry with army life as being equal?

[escape goat]

I've dealt with WAY worse than comparisons of the army to prison.

there's the "what if" game. where people say "You were in the army? I thought about joining once.... yeah..." and you can watch them drift off into there own montage sequence in real life. The other "what if" is "You know, if I joined the army I would have been higher ranking than you because of my bachelors degree." my favorite "what if" moment was when someone told me "yeah, I was gonna join the army but I realized I was too tough."

There's the time Janet Napolitano, director of the department of homeland security put veterans on a terrorist watch list because we were all supposedly dangerous.

There's the time my boss accused me of being a potential workplace shooter because she saw it once on a... you guessed it... procedural police drama.

There's the time my job asked me to violate my own privacy of disability rights because they were scared of... you guessed it... workplace shooters from television shows.

There was the time TIME magazine used pictures of our unit during riot control to paint the united states army as a bunch of violent thugs, all the while the cameraman was taking the pictures from the safety of our vehicles.

the list goes on and on and on.

I'm totally okay with todd. He's the first veteran on television actually painted as a normal dude. And they got his uniform right.
Kane likening prison to the military is both appropriate and inappropriate. war and the american prison system's living conditons are both abhorrent and nightmarish - but the other aspect is one is a sacrifice you make for your country, the other is the sacrifice your country makes for you. Or at least it should be. I still believe in rehabilitation as far as prison goes.

[CommunityFan101]

Originally Posted by escape goat

I've dealt with WAY worse than comparisons of the army to prison.

there's the "what if" game. where people say "You were in the army? I thought about joining once.... yeah..." and you can watch them drift off into there own montage sequence in real life. The other "what if" is "You know, if I joined the army I would have been higher ranking than you because of my bachelors degree." my favorite "what if" moment was when someone told me "yeah, I was gonna join the army but I realized I was too tough."

There's the time Janet Napolitano, director of the department of homeland security put veterans on a terrorist watch list because we were all supposedly dangerous.

There's the time my boss accused me of being a potential workplace shooter because she saw it once on a... you guessed it... procedural police drama.

There's the time my job asked me to violate my own privacy of disability rights because they were scared of... you guessed it... workplace shooters from television shows.

There was the time TIME magazine used pictures of our unit during riot control to paint the united states army as a bunch of violent thugs, all the while the cameraman was taking the pictures from the safety of our vehicles.

the list goes on and on and on.

Did you just drop a heavy context of American society to this show?? well i now clearly see it so thank you for that

Did you also say that you were suspected of a workplace shooter cos' you give an impression that you are one and violating your own disability rights?? I'm a bit lost in this... what kind of field do you imagine to work anyway??

[CommunityFan101]

Originally Posted by escape goat

is it just me, or is there a bit of a layer of hilarity to the episode being centered entirely around some yams, and starburns' is just a tag?

they're also planning to dissect pine cones next year, Yes!! i thought yams were types of prawns (it is in Australia) but its just a sweet potato like potato

starburn wasn't much of a tag, it was more than that, but I'm curious with this whole scenario about starburns death and wonder if it could mean/unravel something

[Johan van der Groep]

What is meant by tag in this context? Something that draws attention?
Then I'm sure there will be more to his sudden death.

Weaving baskets of pine cones. :-) Well, they have made the Eiffel tower of matches, why not.

[Jecht]

Originally Posted by Champ Slice

@Jasoco What makes you say that?

If you watched that epic trailer for the rest of the season...

Spoiler:

part of what they show is the rise of Chang and then they are all in the dean's office being expelled. I'm assuming since there aren't many episodes left and the last one is in May that is what Jasoco meant.

[Johan van der Groep]

Originally Posted by escape goat

I'm totally okay with todd. He's the first veteran on television actually painted as a normal dude. And they got his uniform right.

Kane likening prison to the military is both appropriate and inappropriate. war and the american prison system's living conditons are both abhorrent and nightmarish - but the other aspect is one is a sacrifice you make for your country, the other is the sacrifice your country makes for you. Or at least it should be. I still believe in rehabilitation as far as prison goes.

I guess in Holland the bigger problem would be with the portraying of Todd, because he has been in Iraq and fought for the country. We have had in Holland some casualties because of our mission in Afghanistan and I can't imagine jokes about the mission. I guess there must also be lots of cynism in US about the real reasons for the ME fighting.

However, our sweet Annie driving war hero Todd to tears and afterwards rubbing it in by her irritating celebrating was fun.

[escape goat]

Originally Posted by CommunityFan101

Did you just drop a heavy context of American society to this show?? well i now clearly see it so thank you for that

Did you also say that you were suspected of a workplace shooter cos' you give an impression that you are one and violating your own disability rights?? I'm a bit lost in this... what kind of field do you imagine to work anyway??

Where do I begin. I'm a relatively normal guy who does not even own guns. I can't begin to fathom the idea of being angry enough in the workplace to want to hurt someone. I go home and punch a pillow.

but if you need to know the specific context of the conversation with my boss it went like this

"I saw a veteran on tv go crazy and shoot some coworkers. I hope you don't do that."
to which I replied.
"I don't own guns - and I think we saw the same N.C.I.S. Which is a work of fiction."

and for the second; my workplace was essentially trying to create a "naughty" list for their employed veterans with service connected disabilities BECAUSE at the time veterans were scary.

I noticed you jumped right to those two and completely missed that veterans were classified as terrorists in this country.

in short, '05 to '08 was a pretty rough couple of years for returning veterans because '02 to ....? the media had been making a good solid share on ratings demonizing war veterans to the u.s. population because that's what got viewers. If you look, the closest thing you get to "heroic" depictions of war veterans at the time was "gunner palace". At worst, you get "farenheit 9-11" which blames individual soldiers for the wars they fight in and not the senators who start them.

Even now, "the hurt locker" is an amazing film, but still depicts it's lead as a suffering, self-destructive, conflicted antihero. Great for drama, bad for press for a country that believes everything it sees on television.

Like I said, people here don't even know that saddam hussein committed genocide.

So Todd? awesome character. and Community does a pretty good job of not treating his war veteran history as something that's "evil" or "shameful" or "disgraceful". If the lead characters don't like him, it's because he's got a wierd head, or Pierce just doesn't trust him, or the study group is too petty, etc.

And I like that. Yay Todd.

[escape goat]

Originally Posted by Johan van der Groep

What is meant by tag in this context? Something that draws attention?
Then I'm sure there will be more to his sudden death.

Weaving baskets of pine cones. :-) Well, they have made the Eiffel tower of matches, why not.

I meant tag as a term for a small sub story.

[escape goat]

now let's get to magn8ude.

I find his recent "pop pop" te be quite anticlimatic. almost a footnote even.

[ChaosRed]

Superb episode, for much of the same reason last week's episode worked: each actor was allowed to stretch beyond their sitcom role and embrace a newer, fresher meta-role, tailored just for the episode.

It strikes me that there's an awful lot of role play in Community, that is to say the actors play characters that then play characters. They do this a lot and when they do, the episodes are always strong.

There wasn't much soap opera stuff here either, everyone was largely a distorted version of their original character, each of them channeling a character from Law and Order, or at least the general tone of the show.

They nailed Law Order on so many levels, which is why it was all so hilarious. I saw they thanked Dick Wolf and I wonder if one of the reasons why, wasn't just to thank him for creating the original series, but that perhaps he guided them a little in crafting the parody. Certain scenes, blocking even sounds and visual cues were SPOT on, so cleanly lifted from the show, I thought Dick Wolf must have guided them. Perhaps not, perhaps Harmon studied the show and got it just so pitch perfect.

The actors, once again shined. When allowed to go beyond the "who is Annie dating this week" "Friends" sitcom constraints, they really shine. Pudi in particular, channeled Jerry Orbach perfectly, right down to mannerism, gesture and expression. His whole body language can change as he shifts Abed from one interpretation to the next (he's slightly different in almost every episode it seems), he's really, really gifted.

Other actors did a fine job in this episode too and the jokes came fast and furious as usual. You need a DVR to watch this show, because you sometimes need to go back and review what you missed.

This is NOT a show about relationships, the relationship soap is there, but it's just part of the trim. This is a show about shows. It's a reflection on pop culture's vision of what school is like, rather than a honest reflection on actual school. That's what allows it to be abstract, allows it to break the fourth wall and allows it to role play and branch out into farce.

I still wince at commentary that gets upset when characters are distorted or seemingly inconsistent from one episode to the next. To me, that's a large part of the show's success. It isn't constrained with realism or consistency. It can provide some of that, when required, but it has a much broader license than that.

The show works best when it is examining itself and other aspects of pop culture, using the cast as a canvas. That's why the D&D episode totally works. Each character had to role play (albeit uncomfortably at first), each character was commenting on table gaming and the pop culture surrounding it. It wasn't just a parody of D&D, it was a parody of all the other D&D parodies.

Law & Order is a fine show, and has won awards for a reason, but it is a show that is ridiculously formulaic in its execution. It took a show that is anti-formula, to give it the parody it deserved, by demonstrating just how rigid that formula is.

Harmon did it again, this week's episode was a classic, a really nice piece of well-executed comedy.

[The Foils]

First of all -- hello, new forum. First time visitor, long time watcher, etc.

Second, I originally wanted to come here to see if someone could explain to me why the episode was called Lupine Urology. I know my Latin and Greek -- but I'm struggling to find any connection which makes me all the more intrigued.

Third, this comment really caught my attention, because I've been thinking a lot lately about what the purpose of TV is and how that fits in with my intuition that Community is making the best television right now:

Originally Posted by ChaosRed

This is NOT a show about relationships, the relationship soap is there, but it's just part of the trim. This is a show about shows.

On the one hand, I get what you're getting at. On the other hand, my inclination would be to say that television is about relationships, so insofar as Community is a show about shows, it still has to be a show about relationships to me.

To the extent that you think that the character relationships or even character personalities (cf. this episode) are too fluid or malleable for Community to be a character-driven show, I would instead argue that that sort of dynamism is what distinguishes a television character arc from a movie character arc.

In most movies, a character goes from start, to slight improvement, to much worse, to new best-of-all ending. But, in my experience, the more ambitious TV shows tend to have character arcs that might result in a half dozen right angle turns in a character's thinking, as the character continues to overcompensate for deficient character traits over a longer span of time.

So too with Community. The inter-episode character fluidity doesn't ever really strike me as upsetting the actual fundamentals of the characters. Different aspects of their personalities might be challenged or highlighted, and different interactions with different members of the group might bring out new features, but all of this seems entirely consistent with traditional character-driven television.

What Community adds, to me, by being a "show about shows," is the fact that the characters are hyper-aware of relationship norms/tropes, giving the creators more flexibility to make the characters plausibly and overtly push the boundaries of these dynamics.

Long, stupid way of saying: can't it be both a show about shows and a show about characters? And isn't that why it's so compelling?


Edit: As a side-note on this last episode: I didn't think the characters behaved at all inconsistently. Abed and Troy played Inspector and Constable. Annie played hard hitting detective (Investigative Journalism) to get an A++. Shirley liking cop dramas resonated with me, and her character is pretty malleable -- I don't think the audience was asked much in being asked to believe her in that role. Britta was bad at photography. Jeff is still hyper-invested in Annie and everything she does and also in impressing her as an ethical, new-Jeff lawyer. I thought it worked totally well both as an isolated parody of a show I've never seen (but obviously know more than a little of) and as a continuing exploration of their relationships.

[snesfreak]

Here's an MP3 of the "Law & Order" intro music.
I tried to put the video on Youtube but it wouldn't let me (freakin' copyright bs).

[Johan van der Groep]

Originally Posted by The Foils

First of all -- hello, new forum. First time visitor, long time watcher, etc.

Second, I originally wanted to come here to see if someone could explain to me why the episode was called Lupine Urology. I know my Latin and Greek -- but I'm struggling to find any connection which makes me all the more intrigued.

Third, this comment really caught my attention, because I've been thinking a lot lately about what the purpose of TV is and how that fits in with my intuition that Community is making the best television right now:
[...]

First: Welcome

Second: I guess the title is a reference to Dick Wolf who apparently created Law & Order and who was thanked in the end. Wolf is lupine, and a dick is a urinating tool.

Third: I agree and it's also a bit about culture, high schools and...

You phrase it well with "The inter-episode character fluidity doesn't ever really strike me as upsetting the actual fundamentals of the characters."
Now and then the upsetting occurs and is then heavily commented. This episode the roles for the characters were especiall well chosen, as you pointed out.

[CommunityFan101]

Originally Posted by escape goat

Where do I begin. I'm a relatively normal guy who does not even own guns. I can't begin to fathom the idea of being angry enough in the workplace to want to hurt someone. I go home and punch a pillow.

but if you need to know the specific context of the conversation with my boss it went like this

"I saw a veteran on tv go crazy and shoot some coworkers. I hope you don't do that."
to which I replied.
"I don't own guns - and I think we saw the same N.C.I.S. Which is a work of fiction."

and for the second; my workplace was essentially trying to create a "naughty" list for their employed veterans with service connected disabilities BECAUSE at the time veterans were scary.

I noticed you jumped right to those two and completely missed that veterans were classified as terrorists in this country.

in short, '05 to '08 was a pretty rough couple of years for returning veterans because '02 to ....? the media had been making a good solid share on ratings demonizing war veterans to the u.s. population because that's what got viewers. If you look, the closest thing you get to "heroic" depictions of war veterans at the time was "gunner palace". At worst, you get "farenheit 9-11" which blames individual soldiers for the wars they fight in and not the senators who start them.

Even now, "the hurt locker" is an amazing film, but still depicts it's lead as a suffering, self-destructive, conflicted antihero. Great for drama, bad for press for a country that believes everything it sees on television.

Like I said, people here don't even know that saddam hussein committed genocide.

So Todd? awesome character. and Community does a pretty good job of not treating his war veteran history as something that's "evil" or "shameful" or "disgraceful". If the lead characters don't like him, it's because he's got a wierd head, or Pierce just doesn't trust him, or the study group is too petty, etc.

And I like that. Yay Todd.

What kind of company creates a "naughty list" for veterans what kind of field do you work atm anyway? There is just so much about you that we all do not know sometimes your words can be misleading (such as when I thought you literally were a veteran)

[escape goat]

Originally Posted by CommunityFan101

What kind of company creates a "naughty list" for veterans what kind of field do you work atm anyway? There is just so much about you that we all do not know sometimes your words can be misleading (such as when I thought you literally were a veteran)

I literally AM a veteran. Oif Oef 1 and 3.
u.s. army specialist armored reconnaisance
Purple heart, combat action badge, three arcoms, one asr, one ndf, expeditionary force, presidential unit citation, distinguished service ribbon, good conduct medal, meritorious unit citation, Gwot service. rifle expert, grenade expert, top of unit at gunnery, 500+ combat missions 5 direct contact firefights, and a partridge in a pear tree.

to explain a little better, the naughty list.
I was injured in Iraq, which gets me that purple heart I mentioned. Which puts me on an equal opportunity list which protects veterans with service connected disabilities.
That same disabled list includes other disabilities, such as alcoholism and post traumatic stress disorder.

at that time there was a HUGE stigma agains ptsd; no thanks in part to procedural police shows which portrayed all veterans with post traumatic stress disorder as irrationally violent brutes. And news shows and other media portrayed all veterans as having PTSD.

One day at work. I get a letter from the human resources department marked classified - which asked me to voluntarily disclose the specifics of my disability, specifically any disabilities including drug abuse, alcoholism or mental illness. My disability - being combat wounded, had lumped me into a stigmatized category of veterans who were considered "potentially dangerous" by our own human resources department - the department whose JOB it is to make sure people like me don't get treated unfairly had rationalized a violation of personal privacy on the basis of media stigma.
"Just for their own personal records". By voluntarily giving information regarding a disability formerly protected by law, the human resources can circumvent legal action if they want to give that information to law enforcement agencies to help them create lists of suspects for violent crimes.

No other disabled coworkers received these letters. Just disabled veterans.

and there is the shortest explanation I can give. Hopefully you see why I try to avoid these topics. And I probably won't go too much into my work or my specific unit history online where everybody can read these messages, I have stalkers. That's an even longer story.

if you want to know more about me, just PM.

[escape goat]

Originally Posted by ChaosRed

Law & Order is a fine show, and has won awards for a reason, but it is a show that is ridiculously formulaic in its execution. It took a show that is anti-formula, to give it the parody it deserved, by demonstrating just how rigid that formula is.

Harmon did it again, this week's episode was a classic, a really nice piece of well-executed comedy.

"Police Procedural" used to mean a show about Police and the legal procedure of the criminal process. Now it means a show that follows the procedure of police shows. I use that definition loosely, but several television based companies list shows like "dexter" "burn notice" and "Las Vegas" under the definition of "Police Procedural".

The structure is so specific that you can literally predict that during sweeps, season finales, and ratings slumps there's going to be a tough female cop that shoots a pervert. It's why I call shows like that "shoot the pervert" shows.

I LOVED this episode because when Community is really at it's best it turns the television camera back in on itself. From the over arcing theme of "Let's throw away that 'friends' and 'seinfeld' formula and explore different stuff - old and new"
all the way to shows like this -

I loved "naked pool" for this reason - it totally blew away the old television trope of "eww, your naked. that's gross. T.M.I." and said "Hey, what if we shoved nudity all up in your face for the sake of a pool game?"

great times

[CommunityFan101]

Originally Posted by escape goat

I literally AM a veteran. Oif Oef 1 and 3.
u.s. army specialist armored reconnaisance
Purple heart, combat action badge, three arcoms, one asr, one ndf, expeditionary force, presidential unit citation, distinguished service ribbon, good conduct medal, meritorious unit citation, Gwot service. rifle expert, grenade expert, top of unit at gunnery, 500+ combat missions 5 direct contact firefights, and a partridge in a pear tree.

to explain a little better, the naughty list.
I was injured in Iraq, which gets me that purple heart I mentioned. Which puts me on an equal opportunity list which protects veterans with service connected disabilities.
That same disabled list includes other disabilities, such as alcoholism and post traumatic stress disorder.

at that time there was a HUGE stigma agains ptsd; no thanks in part to procedural police shows which portrayed all veterans with post traumatic stress disorder as irrationally violent brutes. And news shows and other media portrayed all veterans as having PTSD.

One day at work. I get a letter from the human resources department marked classified - which asked me to voluntarily disclose the specifics of my disability, specifically any disabilities including drug abuse, alcoholism or mental illness. My disability - being combat wounded, had lumped me into a stigmatized category of veterans who were considered "potentially dangerous" by our own human resources department - the department whose JOB it is to make sure people like me don't get treated unfairly had rationalized a violation of personal privacy on the basis of media stigma.
"Just for their own personal records". By voluntarily giving information regarding a disability formerly protected by law, the human resources can circumvent legal action if they want to give that information to law enforcement agencies to help them create lists of suspects for violent crimes.

No other disabled coworkers received these letters. Just disabled veterans.

and there is the shortest explanation I can give. Hopefully you see why I try to avoid these topics. And I probably won't go too much into my work or my specific unit history online where everybody can read these messages, I have stalkers. That's an even longer story.

if you want to know more about me, just PM.

Ok you are officially just became my stranger Hero!!!

[escape goat]

Originally Posted by CommunityFan101

Ok you are officially just became my stranger Hero!!!

Well, if anything,
life's been interesting.
not nearly as many girls as you'd think though.

[CommunityFan101]

Originally Posted by escape goat

Well, if anything,
life's been interesting.
not nearly as many girls as you'd think though.

I'm a man of substance, and what you've had is something worth of an experience girls shouldnt be too big of a problem

[FishSauce]

Spent eight days in the Dominican Republic on a beach, so I'm just now catching up. Loved this episode; it was pitch-perfect all the way through.

Also: Britta's little side-bit was my favourite. I laughed *so hard* when all she did was make everything turn sepia.

[Gambino]

I just thought about how horrible Community would be with a laugh-track. Although still bad for its normal episodes, for episodes like this one, it would be just terrible.

[snesfreak]

Originally Posted by Gambino

I just thought about how horrible Community would be with a laugh-track. Although still bad for its normal episodes, for episodes like this one, it would be just terrible.

*has an incredibly evil idea*

[escape goat]

Originally Posted by Gambino

I just thought about how horrible Community would be with a laugh-track. Although still bad for its normal episodes, for episodes like this one, it would be just terrible.

I actually had an idea in cf101's plot ref suggestions where everyone in the group download a laughtrack app on their phones and set it off when the say or do something cliche/awful and slowly escalate into nothing more than slapstick and facial expression gags like "step by step"

but if the show GENUINELY had a laughtrack, how much you want to bet it would become a "ratings giant" like two and a half men?

[XD375]

I've been meaning to start a project where I put laugh tracks on shows that otherwise don't need them, like Sunny and Community.

Just because I want to be an awful person.

[escape goat]

bet if you show it to your friends who hate community they'll love it.

could you imagine Abed knocking something over and saying "did i do that" (laughtrack)

horriblarious

[XD375]

Oh gosh that is just awful.

One of the theme episodes needs to have a "bad sitcom" theme. With plenty of burns jokes at the work of Chuck Lorre.

Some minor character in an argument with Abed:

"Big Bang Theory is the smartest show on TV!"

*laughtrack plays*

"But I saw them doing math!"

[StevenRayBrown]

Its Big Bang Theory without laughter.

[CommunityFan101]

these shows without laugh track feels more realistic and actually at least twice lamer than they're originally are, just sayin

[StevenRayBrown]

I did an experiment and edited an episode on my own. Roughly 19% of BBT is pauses for laughtrack.

That's 4 minutes per episode.

[Jecht]

That video is soooo awkward...It sounds like it's out of place. I think Community's humor isn't one that needs a laugh track. It does to encourage people to laugh but the humor is too "adult" to need one.

I loved this last episode. Definiitely one of my favorites for the season. Maybe tied for second with Pillows and Blankets which is behind Remedial Chaos Theory.

[PascalsTriangle]

I'm back form vacation and finally was able to watch this episode. Wow, probably the best theme episode of the season. It brings me back to 1.20 "The Science of Illusion" where Shirley and Annie are campus security. This time, it's Troy and Abed.

Overall it was really well done; I enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to the aftermath of starburns death in this weeks episode.

[ShyGuy]

I can't believe they killed him...

[CommunityFan101]

Originally Posted by ShyGuy

I can't believe they killed him...

the show or did someone specific?

[Johan van der Groep]

Something else. I definitely prefer parodying genres above particular shows. This episoede was about the crime investigation shows and I think I understood the references reasonable well without ever having watched Law of Order. This whole Dick Wolf (wtf is he?) attributing in fact irritates me, because it makes the episode needless temporary.

Community should have the ambition to make tv that
- stands above references to contemporary persons and shows
- (and therefore) lasts

What I disliked about the Glee-episode (Christmas) was the Glee-referencing. I'd never seen Glee, but grasped the genre. I guess also that in ten years Glee will be forgotten, but Community not, so keep the referencing as general as possible.

[Jecht]

I don't really get what you are arguing...you didn't like they parodied Law & Order or Glee but you don't mind straight up parodying of Dr.Who?

Dick Wolf is the guy that is behind Law & Order. I'm guessing they asked him for permission and his blessing on the episode.

[snesfreak]

GIFs/avatars are done.
I kinda want to take one of the Annie avatars, but I'll let you guys have first choice.

[Johan van der Groep]

Originally Posted by Jecht

I don't really get what you are arguing...you didn't like they parodied Law & Order or Glee but you don't mind straight up parodying of Dr.Who?

Dick Wolf is the guy that is behind Law & Order. I'm guessing they asked him for permission and his blessing on the episode.

Yes. Law & Order and Glee are representations of a well known genre. There is no need to spefically reference them. Except the reasons I've mentioned, additionally these two shows are hardly known outside the States.
Dr Who is indeed a different case. That's not a genre, it's a unique show.

I believe Dick Wolf gave them advice and he is the only direct reference to Law & Order in this episode. It's not a big problem, but it is something that makes Community unneeded exclusive.

[Johan van der Groep]

Originally Posted by snesfreak

GIFs/avatars are done.
I kinda want to take one of the Annie avatars, but I'll let you guys have first choice.

Thx!

If someone gets irritated I'll change it too a more serene Avatar.

[Gambino]

I completely disagree. I loved the Glee episode because the songs were hilarious. You are right that in 100 years when people no longer understand the reference to the babyboom generation following WWII, that song will no longer be funny. Unfortunately, the way community is written, it is impossible for it to "last" forever.

[CommunityFan101]

Originally Posted by Gambino

Unfortunately, the way community is written, it is impossible for it to "last" forever.

nothing last forever however some do last for a while

[Johan van der Groep]

Originally Posted by Gambino

I completely disagree. I loved the Glee episode because the songs were hilarious. You are right that in 100 years when people no longer understand the reference to the babyboom generation following WWII, that song will no longer be funny. Unfortunately, the way community is written, it is impossible for it to "last" forever.

I loved it too, but despite the Glee-referencing. There are more Glee-like shows, the parody is clear.
I believe it's called a pastiche when you ridicule a genre. You should aim for the universalia, to put it Platonian.

[Gambino]

I misunderstand what you meant, I thought you were saying the episode was bad because of the glee referencing.

I don't see a problem with it though. I have seen Glee only once (when I was on a plane and had nothing else to do), and can understand why Dan Harmon really hates it (the writing was terrible). However, the mocking of glee that occurred (I am told that when they enter the study room before the Babyboomer song, the study room is made to resemble the Glee room) didn't distract from the episode at all, and I see nothing wrong with the show adding on subtleties that are funny to a more specific audience. But you are right that community's best episodes are funny for more general reasons, and do not rely on specific references.

[Johan van der Groep]

Originally Posted by Gambino

I misunderstand what you meant, I thought you were saying the episode was bad because of the glee referencing.

I don't see a problem with it though. I have seen Glee only once (when I was on a plane and had nothing else to do), and can understand why Dan Harmon really hates it (the writing was terrible). However, the mocking of glee that occurred (I am told that when they enter the study room before the Babyboomer song, the study room is made to resemble the Glee room) didn't distract from the episode at all, and I see nothing wrong with the show adding on subtleties that are funny to a more specific audience. But you are right that community's best episodes are funny for more general reasons, and do not rely on specific references.

OK, I'll go with you. These specific references are maybe a sort of concession. The producers know that these 'subtleties' are good from some quick and easy earned laughter. But you won't rerewatch a show that consists solely of these references, so they have to be prudent with them. The references (indeed) must not stand in the way.