Community 1x08

Annie is so very much in love with Troy – and has been since high school. So we feel her pain when he is asking her advice about dating – and she’s secretly hoping he’s thinking about asking her out. For her part, Britta feels bad about the way things ended with mirco-nippled Vaughn. Despite the fact that she told Pierce not to talk to Vaughn, Pierce is the kind of man who knows that women always say the opposite of what they really want. So he talks to Vaughn. He isn’t be able to patch things up between them, but he does get offered to play in his band. Their latest tune, “Getting rid of Britta (getting rid of the beast).” Ha! Meanwhile, Jeff is thrown out of his luxury condo, living in his car on campus. When his classmates find out and offer help, Jeff replies: “The next person to offer me charity or pity will be mentioned by name in my suicide note.” Then his car gets towed, and he has to take up Abed’s offer to crash at his dorm room. Non-stop tv and cereals, and having the “time of his life,” is getting too much for Abed. It’s great for him, he tells Britta, but he realizes it’s not doing Jeff any good. So Britta breaks into his fancy condo and steals one of his handcrafted Italian platinum-plated faucets to show him what he’s missing. Though she doesn’t believe a word she’s saying, and giving him the entirely misguided impression she’s into him, Jeff moves out of the dorm, checks into a motel and starts looking for a new apartment. Such a sweet show!

Community 1x07

Annie is excited to get extra credit organizing a Día de los Muertos party. But don’t call it the Mexican Halloween, Señor Chang warns, because that’s offensive if you’re familiar with the (no doubt completely fictitious, but absolutely hilarious) sexual position. Jeff claims he has a conflict, “It conflicts with the enjoyment of my life.” He then asks Britta if their relationship will ever move on beyond strictly platonic, and when she denies, he tells her he’ll chase after his hot statistics professor instead. He immediately approaches Prof. Slater aggressively, get’s turned down, but refuses to budge. He asks for a chance to change her mind. “Oh, I know you can. That’s why you’re not getting a chance,” she replies with a seductive smile that says “follow me to my office and you’ll get some.” But Annie prevents him, begging him to join the party. Best part of the Día de los Muertos: Abed as Batman, Troy as Lionel Ritchie, Pierce as the Beast Master, Britta as squirrel, Shirley as Harry Potter? Tough choice. Then Chang offers to take Jeff to the faculty Halloween party, where he arrives as cowboy stirring his spurs for Slater’s female Robin Hood. His friends arrive to save Annie’s party. He tells them to leave, but still has no chance with Prof. Slater. Chang whispers a few words of advice in his ear. Jeff returns to her and begs, “Please sleep with me, please. Pretty please! I’m so lonely, I haven’t slept with anyone in a very long time, and you are so good looking. Please do me the favor of having sex with me.” It works like a charm. They walk out of the party together, past the library, and get stopped by Troy, because Pierce is tripping out on the ecstasy pill Starburns gave him.

This show is so much fun! I love all the characters. They each have something adorable – and something absolutely annoying. Troy and Abed are a terrific team. Their bits at the end of each episode are some of the funniest moments in recent comedy. It’s takes a while before Annie and Shirley grow on you, but you’ll soon enough love them with all your heart. Every guy wants to be Jeff. And Britta ... hot damn! Enough said. Chevy Chase’s Pierce Hawthorne is such character, too! He’s one of these people who buys all the latest useless gadgets, but doesn’t know what to do with them. When he gets an “ear-nocular” (some type of in-ear mini radar for listening in on conversations), he believes everyone is gossiping about him. He keeps trying to use voice command on his cell phone, but it won’t work. “It’s like my mother,” he sighs. “Calling mother,” his cell responds. “Hello Pierce! How’s school going? Are you popular?” his mother asks with his phone on speaker! I can’t pick a favorite. I’m glad I’m watching this show and I hope you all do, too. Spread the word.

Community 1x06

Annie is helping Troy with his astronomy test. Pierce walks in and says, “As far as I’m concerned there’s only one black hole worth studying.” Everyone is expecting a racist joke. “It’s called Sagittarius A, it’s located in the center of our galaxy, and it has the density of forty suns.” Now everyone’s surprised he even knows that. Jeff raises his finger in warning that Pierce isn’t done yet. “Just like my wiener,” Pierce finishes. Then Dean Pelton “randomly” strolls in to ask Troy if he would like to join the college football team, which the dean proudly named the “Human Beings.” Shirley asks Britta to go the ladies’ room together, but she says no. Jeff explains why that offended Shirley, but tells her how to make up: “Nothing says, ‘I’m a woman,’ like going out for dinner with me.” “Nothing says, ‘I’m a pig,’ like you,” she retorts.

When Jeff realizes the dean is using his name and face for college promotional material, he’s shocked and heads to the dean’s office. Pelton sees an opportunity to manipulate Jeff into convincing Troy he should join the football team. Jeff wouldn’t be a disbarred barrister if he couldn’t bullshit Troy into believing it’s his calling to claim his spotlight. Meanwhile Shirley isn’t much interested in going to the ladies’ room with Britta anymore after she went all uptight feminist about make-up and health spas. It’s the moment Britta slowly becomes aware what a self-righteous buzz-kill she is. “I peed alone my whole life,” she cries, “Women have always hated me.” But then she has an opportunity to bond with Annie, who’s devastated that Troy joined the football team. Aww, how sweet!

Community 1x05

Greendale Community College Dean Craig Pelton announces the unveiling of a statue of one of their most famous alumni, Luiz Guzman. Abed is excited to ask him about his movie choices, especially Carlito’s Way, The Cowboy Way, The Hard Way, and Q&A. Troy retorts that he just got off the phone with Guzman, and he can’t wait to get on his private jet from Honolulu to have that conversation with Abed. Abed is surprised Guzman would call Troy about him, and that Guzman knows him at all. “You don’t know,” Troy asks, after some surprised looks on his face, “I’m President Obama’s nephew.” He explains he didn’t tell Abed before, because he didn’t know if he could trust him. But now’s the time to tell him everything, starting with his invention of the Ferrari. Jeff’s dismayed Britta gave him a fake cell phone number, discovering he’s been texting with some guy in Boulder for a month, but when Britta asks him if he will agree only to use her number for friendly purposes, Jeff passes.

Meanwhile, Señor Chang has discovered a crib sheet and threatens to give the whole class a zero unless the cheater comes forward. When the study group starts discussing who may have cheated, Abed discovers that Troy has been messing with him and learns the joy of lying as a joke. “This isn’t a table, hahah!” Next day in class, Britta admits having cheated and is threatened with expulsion. Jeff offers to represent her in the hokey tribunal. The enfolding scene is too funny to convey. You’ve got to see it for yourself. In the end, she gets exonerated on the condition that she receives weekly psychiatric counseling of professor Duncan. For his part, Abed conjures up an elaborate scheme just to mess with Troy, pretending to be communicating with aliens. Troy eventually tells him it would be less worrying if he were an alien than to see him go through such great lengths to mess with him – and still fail dramatically. And they’re my best buddies for it!

Community 1x04

Imagine having Señor Chang as your Spanish teacher! This man is utterly deranged. He received student evaluation cards and actually took the time to analyze the handwriting against past exams to find out who gave him such scathing feedback. Recognizing the little circles dotting the I’s from Annie’s handwriting, he slowly approaches her desk, shoving his face in hers, rubbing his nose against hers, and kissing her forehead. Poor girl! Hilarious, though, but totally insane and creepy. Anyway, this would be the episode in which we are introduced to shirtless, micro-nippled, hacky-sacking, surfer hippie Vaughn (is that his first or last name?) – the most annoying creature to breathe air on earth, but frightfully good looking. Obviously Britta has a crush on him, to Jeff’s great dismay. He tries not to show he’s jealous. Fortunately for him, Britta feels Vaughn is taking it to relationship status too fast and comes to Jeff for advice, which gives him an opportunity to sabotage the relation – but it won’t send Britta rushing into his arms, though. Meanwhile Annie’s taking a psychology lab with Prof. Duncan. The experiment involves making subjects wait unwittingly until they reach their breaking point. Naturally, Señor Chang breaks down the moment Annie walks in to tell the subjects they are running five minutes late! After three hours of waiting, only Troy and Abed are left. Prof. Duncan never counted on this! Troy crawls out, but Abed just keeps sitting in the waiting room, patiently waiting. Twenty-six full hours! It’s Duncan who breaks down in desperation. When Annie confronts Abed about not leaving, he admits he was livid, but stayed because she told him they were friends. Guilt trip! Laugh-out-loud funny!

Community 1x03

Jeff signs up for what he believes to be an easy A: no tests, no papers, just one assignment – to live in the moment. Should be a cakewalk for Jeff. He encourages his study group to all sign up for it, too, but Abed can’t. His father will only pay for courses that will help him run their falafel restaurant. He would rather take film classes. Sweet Britta immediately offers to pay for the course. Then Troy sneezes, and Jeff exclaims, “Hey, Troy sneezes like a girl.” He retorts, “How about I pound you like a boy? That didn’t come out right.” Shirley prays they all leave Troy alone. “You’re not my mother,” he replies. “She’s not?” Pierce asks. “Twenty-nine seconds,” Jeff remarks, referring to his bet Pierce would say something racist within one minute. With most of his friends in tow, Jeff gets picked out by the professor for being a cocky opportunist with no intention of seizing the day. Now Jeff has to prove somehow that he is genuinely living in the moment. That’s going to be tough. Ridiculous outfits and flying kites won’t cut it. Hilarious holy war ensues when Abed’s father comes to campus and gets in a confrontation with Britta while his son is filming everything for his first documentary. The father dashes off, leaving Britta and Jeff to look after Abed, who just keeps filming. When he’s done, he shows it to Britta, Jeff and his father. In the end, his father cries. His son is hard to understand, but if making films will make him understood, he will pay for the classes. The falafel business will be his fall back. That even made the cynical Cricket cry! Jeff and Britta walk off, she thanks him for being there for Abed, he jokes that must make her feel uncomfortable, she tells him to kiss her already. “A+ Winger!” the professors exclaims. “Where even,” Britta smiles. “I know a live changing kiss when I see one,” the professor explains. “Yea,” Jeff sighs, staring after Britta as she leaves. Aaah, what a show! Love it.

Community 1x02

The Cricket had no idea Spanish 101 could be this hilarious, but is becoming a fast fan of Community! In this episode we get introduced to Señor Chang (Ken Jeong, The Office), our friends’ outrageous Spanish teacher. The class gets a team assignment, and while Jeff is switching with Abed to team up with Britta, Pierce manages to switch with Britta to team up with Jeff. Meanwhile, after Britta tells them of the political assassinations of Guatemalan journalists, Shirley and Annie organize an on-campus protest against the many deaths due to systematic violence in Guatemala. Our disbarred barrister is mighty bummed being stuck in the same room with asswipe Hawthorne, but when Jeff believes he might win Britta’s heart if he commits himself to Pierce’s crazy presentation, he agrees to entertain the class to the most outlandish scenes ever observed on any community college. Afterwards, Britta tells Jeff that a smart guy like him would know that “no woman in that class would be able to look at you as a sexually viable candidate ever again.” And she loves toying with his feelings like that – if only to play hard to get. In the end, Abed and Troy show they’ve barely mastered even the basics of Spanish, when in turn they rap verses along the other’s beatbox: “Donde está el biblioteca, mi llamo t-bone, la araña discoteca. / Discoteca, muñeca, la biblioteca está en bigote grande, perro, manteca. / Manteca, bigote, gigante, pequeño cabeza es nieve, cerveza es bueno. / Buenos díaz, mi gusto patatas frías, el bigote de las cabras es Cameron Díaz.” Ahahaha!

Community 1x01

Community is a hilarious comedy (that started back in 2009 on NBC) about Jeff Winger (comedian Joel McHale, best known from The Soup), a disbarred lawyer who has to return to college after his license is revoked because his degree is from Columbia, the country, not the university. (Never mind that you won’t get a law degree from community college this is funny enough to suspend disbelief.) On his first day in Greensdale Community College, Jeff sets up a Spanish study group for the sole reason of hitting on pretty girl Britta (Gillian Jacobs, The Box). The rest of the cast and their characters are a hoot, too! There’s film studies major Abed Nadir, former high school quarterback Troy, goody-two-shoes Annie (Alison Brie, who plays Trudy Campbell on Mad Men), who has a crush on Troy, recently divorced Shirley, and Pierce Hawthorne (the fabulous Chevy Chase), who apparently made a fortune with moist towelette wipes. Jeff tries to pressure an old acquaintance, psychology professor Ian Duncan (John Oliver, The Daily Show), into giving him the answers to all the upcoming tests because Jeff once defended Duncan in a DUI case. Despite his conviction that if he talks long enough he can make anything seem right, Jeff doesn’t score a date with Britta nor the test answers. So he is forced to remain with the study group if he doesn’t want to flunk the exam.