Leave it to the folks behind Community to go the extra mile for a joke. Last night's episode featured Britta's small-nippled ex, Vaughn, singing a song about what a B Britta is. First of all, I love it when anyone on TV calls someone a "B," because it always makes me think of Arrested Development ("Don't call mother a 'B,' Michael!"), and secondly, having Pierce on keyboards and backup vocals singing about how Britta is a "GD B," is just hilarious.
My sister has a friend named Britta, so anytime there's any Britta hate on Community, we harass her on her Facebook profile with clips. Because maturity is my middle name. So enjoy this video and bask in the glory of more of Vaughn's tortured rhyme schemes. Sample lyric: "I wouldn't strangle her, but I would sell her to the highest bidder." It even becomes a singalong at the end!
[Watch clips and episodes of Community on SlashControl.]
chevy chase-related stories
"Gettin' Rid of Britta" - the music video
Review: Community - Home Economics
(S01E08) Well, that ending was disappointing, wasn't it? Spoiler alert: the gag over the closing credits did not feature Abed and Troy. What were they thinking? Those were some of the funniest moments of the first seven episodes!It was about time we saw the financial repercussions of Jeff having lost his license to practice law. There's a lifestyle that comes with being a big-shot lawyer, and it's not at all the same lifestyle of your typical college student. That's Abed's life, and we got to see that, as well.
Meanwhile, Annie tries and tries and tries to muster up the courage to talk to Troy about her feelings. The problem is, I think she's expecting him to put two and two together as long as she drops enough hints. But it doesn't look like math is one of Troy's strong suits. Or thinking, for that matter.
Continue reading Review: Community - Home Economics
Review: Community - Introduction to Statistics
(S01E07) My wife bought me one of those giant weekly pill containers as a joke once. She even took my allergy medication and dispersed them across the different daily containers. Looking at it, though, made me think about that day in the future when I just might need to be taking a bin full of medication on a daily basis.Granted this revelation that Pierce carries one of these around with him shouldn't come as a real surprise. His age is a huge part of his character. That, and the pills were a major part of getting us where we needed to go in this episode for Pierce's arc. And Jeff's for that matter, but then again Jeff is at the center of everything, isn't he?
Speaking of which, is he really all that charming and good-looking? Maybe I don't see it because I'm a straight man. So tell me, if you're not, would Jeff's best moves and lines work for you the way they were working on the teacher this week, or are you more resistant to his affectations, like Britta?
Continue reading Review: Community - Introduction to Statistics
NBC commits to more Community, Parks and Mercy
Earlier this week, one of the big honchos at NBC was kvetching to the media about how the company hates being in fourth place. Well, the only way out of the bottom is better programming. I don't know if the network will succeed with this news, but at least it's committing to its programs. Three shows got full season pickups, Community, Parks and Recreation and Mercy. That means nine episodes more each.
Continue reading NBC commits to more Community, Parks and Mercy
Review: Community - Football, Feminism and You
(S01E06) See, now that wasn't so hard, was it, Community? I knew you could give me another good episode. And finally a sympathetic side to Britta. So far she's been the annoying, self-righteous blonde that Jeff wants to sleep with for some reason. But that's about all we've seen of her personality. In fact, I couldn't even see why Jeff wanted to get into her pants.This week, we got to get behind Britta's walls a bit and see her even take her first tentative steps outside of them. Shirley, as the social queen of the show, was right there to help her along the way. And Annie was right there, too, to give Britta the chance to be a shoulder for someone to cry one.
Which brings us to what Jeff's up to this week. I guess it's going to take a really damned long time for Jeff to "grow." Every time he seems to have a moment of self-awareness about his douchebaggery, he turns around the next week and is just as big an ass.
Continue reading Review: Community - Football, Feminism and You
Community: Advanced Criminal Law
(S01E05) Hmmm, I'm not even sure what it was. I still really like Community, and there were some moments that I recognized as humorous throughout this episode. And yet, I found myself kind of bored with most of it. Maybe it's me.There was certainly plenty going on, with Señor Chang on the warpath because someone cheated on their Spanish test, Abed learning the highly cultured art of "messing with" someone, and Annie recruiting Pierce to write the new school song. You have the Dean running around still pretending the community college is Harvard or Brown, while Jeff's friend, Professor Duncan, began his quest to beat Jeff into Britta's pants.
I will state, officially for the record, that I am about as done with Britta constantly accusing Jeff of only wanting to get together with her. We're five episodes in and it's getting tired. Either he is or he isn't, but I don't need to hear about it in every scene they have together.
Continue reading Community: Advanced Criminal Law
Sundays with Seth: Meet the Crinklesacks and fly with the Smiths
This is the third week of the new FOX Sunday night, so it's time to check in and see how the lineup is shaping up. I wanted to give The Cleveland Show a few weeks to settle down and start to figure out what kind of show it wants to be. The pilot wasn't the strongest, but there was so much set-up involved, you couldn't tell anything about what future episodes would be like.
With Seth MacFarlane now providing a full hour-and-a-half of FOX's Sunday programming, we decided to take a look at all of his shows in a single post each week. At first, I wasn't sure if I was even going to like The Cleveland Show enough to do this, but it's already grown on me. And that's much faster than American Dad, which took more than a year of sampling here and there before I tuned in regularly.
Continue reading Sundays with Seth: Meet the Crinklesacks and fly with the Smiths
Community: Social Psychology
(S01E04) All hail Ken Jeong, returning to the cast this week. Now we see how he can be a part of storylines even when the students aren't in his class. Despite being in very few scenes so far, I can already tell that his Senor Chang is going to be one of the funniest characters on the show.Couple him with last week's Professor Whitman (John Michael Higgins), and it becomes clear that the teachers at this community college are going to be the ones who are completely off-the-wall insane.
Our motley crew is more eccentric. We got an opportunity to get a little further into Shirley's unique personality, as she and Jeff discovered something they could bond over and talk about. In fact, it turns out this thing is about the only thing they can talk about, and it's something we can all relate to.
Continue reading Community: Social Psychology
Community: Introduction to Film
(S01E03) Hey Glee fans, Principal Figgins (Iqbal Theba) is Abed's father! Not the character, but the actor. We can always pretend, though. When those kids graduate McKinley High, they can come here. And Theba's not the only fun guest star we got this week. Fresh from a failed stint on Kath & Kim, John Michael Higgins appeared as the most free-spirited economics professor you could ever meet.Throw out your books, your shoes and stand on your desk. Carpe diem! Wow, easy "A," right? That's what Jeff thought. He tried to look like he was seizing the day to earn the grade, but to truly do it requires a combination of relaxation and impulsiveness. Jeff's not capable of doing anything without planning and an ulterior motive, generally self-serving. Still it was fun watching his carefully orchestrated attempts to appear spontaneous.
Continue reading Community: Introduction to Film
Community: Spanish 101
(S01E02) It looks like self-awareness has come to the study group of Community, or at least to one member of it. Also coming to Community is Ken Jeong, finally. Jeong is hilarious in ... well everything he's in, and here is no exception. We were introduced to him in a lovely scene where he berates and screams at his Spanish class for no reason at all.Now that we're past the introductions, it's time to start getting a feel for what this show is going to be like. I'm guessing that they're still trying to figure out everybody's personality, and it's going to take time to get it right. Not to mention that it will probably take a few episodes to give everyone a chance to expose their inner selves.
I guess I was a little surprised at how quickly Shirley and Annie not only connected with one another, but went on a well-intentioned but incredibly tacky protest crusade. They did confirm that the show will be more Scrubs-zany than realistic. I can hang with the more screwball humor.
Continue reading Community: Spanish 101
Community: Pilot (series premiere)
(S01E01) In a rather touching tribute to John Hughes, tonight's premiere of Community honored the director in the best way possible. By creating a great ensemble of individuals coming together to form a ... yes, that's the meaning of the title ... community.
I expected to like this show. Hell, the promos and early reviews made it a foregone conclusion. What I wasn't sure of was whether I'd like it because it had funny lines and jokes, or whether I'd like it because I cared about the people in it. It looks like the answer to that is going to be both.
The study group that Jeff accidentally pulls together to try and get into Britta's pants -- because why else would you form one -- is made up of just the kind of eclectic personalities you need to make a comedy like this work. Like Cheers, these are people from all different walks of life coming together.
Continue reading Community: Pilot (series premiere)
Community's Dan Harmon was told by NBC that critics are "bitter"
At the same NBC TCA party where I spoke to Joel McHale, I also ran into Community creator Dan Harmon. Suffice to say, he's a chatty fellow. I started off by asking him how a first-time show runner like him prepares to be in front of a ballroom full of reporters, as he had been earlier in the day. His answer was pretty interesting: they get briefed and told we're a bitter lot.Harmon's claim to fame before Community was that he helped create The Sarah Silverman Program for Comedy Central, and he was one of the few people who thinks that the network creative process has been as smooth, if not smoother, than the process for basic cable.
He also got extremely effusive about having Chevy Chase on his show; I was going to edit his epic response to my question about Chevy, but it's so loopy that I figured I'd just let it stand as is. Interview after the jump.
Continue reading Community's Dan Harmon was told by NBC that critics are "bitter"
NBC turns to Facebook to preview Community
I've been pretty down on a lot of the stuff NBC has done about the new fall season, especially the Jay Leno experiment. But here's something that strikes me as a smart move. NBC is streaming the pilot of Community on Facebook. It's sans commercials and free for anyone who's a Facebook user who's willing to become a fan of Community. Or they can send a link from the fan page to friends, or place it on their Facebook profile.Marketing-wise, this makes a lot of sense. The demographic NBC is targeting is the Facebook generation. And just the idea of seeing something before it previews anywhere else -- on your laptop for free just by going on Facebook -- is easy as pie.
Continue reading NBC turns to Facebook to preview Community
TV Squad previews NBC's new shows (part 1)
NBC isn't exactly engendering a lot of goodwill among people, with their cancellations of shows like Life and Medium, and My Name is Earl. The fact that they're replacing these shows with not one but two medical shows, isn't exactly a confidence booster. NBC hasn't sent screeners of all their pilots yet, hence the "Part 1" in the title. But I have gotten a taste of both their comedy and drama offerings with Community, a comedy starring The Soup's Joel McHale, and Trauma, one of the aforementioned medical dramas.Going into this, I didn't have high hopes for Trauma, and while I wanted to like Community, I had a bad feeling that it wasn't going to be the vehicle that would change Joel McHale from cute host of a basic cable show to primetime star. Now, after seeing both of them, I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by one.
Continue reading TV Squad previews NBC's new shows (part 1)
Scrubs duo moves on to NBC's Community
If ABC renews Scrubs for another season, the show might return without two of its longtime writer-producers.Scrubs scribes Garrett Donovan and Neil Goldman will join NBC's upcoming comedy Community under a new two-year deal with Universal Media Studios. Community was reportedly a big hit at NBC's recent infront presentation, and it looks like the network has high hopes for the show.
Judging by the preview video that hit the Web this week, Community looks pretty damn hilarious. It stars Joel McHale (The Soup) as a lawyer who is forced to go back to community college. In an attempt to get closer to a girl who looks like Elisabeth Shue, he starts a study group with a team of misfits, including a quirky lifelong learner played by Chevy Chase.
The TV Squad Podcast: Linda Purl talks about The Office, we talk spoilers, and more
Ask TV Squad: Ghost Whisperer and more!
The TV Squad Podcast: Bill Scheft of The Late Show, Cake Boss, Mad Men and more
