Pilot

Pilot | Season 1 | Episode 1

Dean Pelton: What is community college? Well, you’ve heard all kinds of things. You’ve heard it’s “loser” college for remedial teens, twenty-something dropouts, middle-age divorcees. And old people keeping their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity. That’s what you heard. However, I wish you luck!

Abed: I’m only half Arabic, actually. My dad is Palestinian, but he’s a U.S. citizen. He’s not a threat to national security or anything. A lot of people want to know that after they meet him because he has an angry energy. But not like angry at America, just angry at my mom for leaving him. Although, she did leave because he was angry, and he was angry because she’s American. My name’s Abed, by the way.
Jeff: Abed, nice to know you and then meet you in that order.

Abed: Her name is Britta, she’s 28, birthday in October. She has two older brothers and one of them works with children who have a disorder I might wanna look up. Oh, and she thinks she’s gonna flunk tomorrow’s test so she really needs to focus. And she’s sorry if that makes her seem cold.
Jeff Winger: Holy crap. Abed, I see your value now.
Abed: That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.

Duncan: I thought you had a bachelor’s from Columbia.
Jeff: And now I have to get one from America. And it can’t be an email attachment.

Duncan: Now, Jeff, just by asking that you have insulted the integrity of this entire institution. Oi, waster. Not a bathroom, not, not a bathroom.
Jeff: Okay, Duncan. You did seem less into integrity the day that I convinced 12 of your peers that when you made that U-turn on the freeway and tried to order chalupas from the emergency call box, that your only real crime was loving America.
Duncan: Well, I do love America. I love it very much. I love chalupas.

Duncan: Jeff, are you familiar with the adage, “Cheaters never prosper”?
Jeff Winger: No…And if I wanted to learn something, I wouldn’t have come to community college.

Jeff: Duermo tarde español. una hora más. no rayar mi coche.

Britta: I dropped out of high school because I thought for some reason it would impress Radiohead.

Jeff: Really? Wow, you’re easy.
Britta: Hell yeah!

Duncan’s Text Message: Con-4-s-8-tion on football field now!!!

Britta: Abed.
Abed: Yeah?
Britta: What’s your read on that guy?
Abed: You look like Elizabeth Shue.

Jeff: There’s a guy trying out for the track team that is older than the game of poker.

Jeff: I discovered at a very early age that if I talk long enough, I could make anything right or wrong. So, either I’m God, or truth is relative. And in either case, booyah.
Duncan: Oh. Interesting. It’s just the average person has a much harder time saying “booyah” to moral relativism.
Jeff: Duncan, you have to play shrink to protect your pride. I accept, you’re chicken.
Duncan: Are you trying to use reverse psychology on a psychologist?
Jeff: No, I’m just using regular psychology on a spineless, British twit.
Duncan: I’m a Professor, you can’t talk to me that way!
Jeff Winger: A 6 year old girl could talk to you that way!
Duncan: Yes, because that would be adorable.
Jeff Winger: No, because you’re a 5 year old girl and there’s a pecking order!
Duncan: Fine, I’ll do it!
Jeff: Thank you.
Duncan: Yeah, with pleasure. Bye! Yes! Good! Why am I still shouting? I’m drawing attention to myself.

Jeff: My name is Jeff.
Pierce: Jeff, it’s a pleasure. My name is Pierce Hawthorne. And that is Hawthorne as in Hawthorne Wipes, the award winning moist towelette.
Jeff: I was just gonna ask.
Pierce: I’m also a Toastmaster, so perhaps I should do that introductions.
Jeff: Definitely.
Pierce: Alright, you already know Brittles.
Britta: Britta.
Pierce: A-bed. A-bed the A-rab. Is that inappropriate?
Abed: Sure.
Pierce: Roy, Roy the wonder boy.
Troy: Troy.
Pierce: Little princess Elizabeth.
Annie: Annie.
Pierce: And finally, this beautiful creature is named Shirley.
Jeff: Is that even close?
*Shirley nods*

Shirley: I think she needs to decide whether she wants to be considered a child or an adult, because children get pity but not respect. And adults, they get respect, but they also get the back of their head grabbed and their face pushed through jukeboxes.

Pierce: Sexually harassing? That makes no sense to me. Why would I harass somebody that turns me on?
Troy: Saying she turns you on is the harassment dude.
Pierce: Hey, I am a prominent business leader and a highly sought-after dinner guest. And I will not take courting advice from some teenage boy.

Abed: *slams hand on table* You know what I got for Christmas? It was banner year at the Bender family. I got a carton of cigarettes. The old man grabbed me he said “Hey, smoke up Johnny.” No, Dad, what about you!?

Jeff: You know what makes humans different from other animals?
Troy: Feet.
Pierce: No, no come on, bears have feet.
Jeff: We’re the only species on earth that observes “Shark Week.” Sharks don’t even observe “Shark Week,” but we do. For the same reason I can pick up this pencil, tell you it’s name is Steve and go like this *breaks it in half* And part of you dies just a little bit on the inside. Because people can connect with anything. We can sympathize with a pencil, we can forgive a shark, and we can give Ben Affleck an Academy Award for screenwriting.
Pierce: Big mistake.
Jeff: People can find the good in just about anything but themselves. Look at me. It’s clear to all of you that I am awesome, but I can never admit that because that would make me an ass. But what I can do is see what makes Annie awesome. She’s driven. We need driven people or the lights go out and the ice cream melts. And Pierce, we need guys like Pierce. This guy has wisdom to offer.
Pierce: The Dalai Lama and I–
Jeff: We should listen to him sometime, we wouldn’t regret it. And Shirley, Shirley has earned our respect. Not as a wife, not as a mother, but as a woman. And don’t test her on that, because that thing about the jukebox was way too specific to be improvised. And Troy, Who cars if Troy thinks he’s all that? Maybe he is. Do you think astronauts go to the moon because they hate oxygen? No, they’re trying to impress their high school’s prom king. And Abed, Abed’s a shaman. You ask him to pass the salt, he gives you a bowl of soup. Because you know what, soup is better. Abed is better. You are all better than you think you are, you are just designed not to believe it when you hear it from yourself.
Pierce: Soup?
Jeff: I want you to look to the person to your left. Sorry. Look at the person sitting next to you. I want you to extend to that person the same compassion that you extend to sharks, pencils, and Ben Affleck. I want you to say to that person, “I forgive you.”
Annie and Shirley: I forgive you.
Abed and Britta: I forgive you.
Troy: I forgive you.
Pierce: You little twerp.
Jeff: Pierce, I’d like to you say “I forgive you.”
Shirley: He didn’t say it?
Pierce: I forgive you.
Jeff: You’ve just stopped being a study group. You’ve become something unstoppable. I hereby pronounce you, a community.

Abed: This isn’t like Breakfast Club anymore, now it’s like Stripes or Meatballs. Anything with Bill Murray really.

Jeff: I make things up, and I got paid a lot of money to do it. Before I came to this school-shaped toilet, I was a lawyer.
Abed: You know, I thought you were like Bill Murray in any of his films, but you’re more like Michael Douglas in any of his films.
Jeff: Yeah? Well you have Aspergers.
Troy: Ha, ha. Ass burger.
Annie: It’s a serious disorder.
Shirley: It really is.
Pierce: If it’s so serious why don’t they call it meningitis?
Troy: Heh heh, yeah.
Pierce: Heh, heh. Ass burger.
Troy: Burger for your ass.

Jeff: Why are people trying to teach me things at a school that has an express tuition aisle?

Pierce: I like you, Jeffrey. You remind me of myself at your age.
Jeff: I deserve that.

Jeff: Listen, it doesn’t matter. You lose the jacket to please them, you keep it to piss them off. Either way, it’s for them. That’s what’s weak.
Troy: Whoa, you just wrinkled my brain man.

Abed: I’m sorry I called you Michael Douglas, and I see your value now.
Jeff: Well, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.