Community/Trivia

• Acclaimed Flop: Killed in reviews but was killed in ratings.
• Bonus Material: The first season DVD set comes with a short Kickpuncher comic written by Troy and illustrated by fellow student Jim Mahfood, DVD Commentary, extended cuts of certain episodes, Hilarious Outtakes, Deleted Scenes, the "Study Break" shorts, and a couple new sketches.
  • The interiors of the DVD cases are designed as yearbooks, Greendale brochures and even Abed's notebook from Cooperative Calligraphy.
  • Among the many tidbits included are (presumably canon) hometowns for the main characters. Strangely, everyone is kinda paired off in this respect: Jeff and Shirley are from Denver, Abed and Britta from Riverside, Annie and Troy from Greendale itself, and Pierce and Chang are from out-of-state (Wyoming and California respectively).
    • Season 3 episode Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism shows shared flashbacks of Shirley and Jeff as children, and while they don't specify that it's Denver it does confirm that they grew up in the same place.
• Creator Backlash:
  • While liking his co-stars, Chevy Chase doesn't have many nice things to say about his time on the show.
  • Most of the cast didn't like Season 4 due to Dan Harmon sitting it out. Dan himself also had quite a few things to say about it after he'd watched it.
• Defictionalization:
  • Screener DVDs were packaged with cootie catchers based on the opening credits sequence.
  • The frozen sperm cylinders from "Cooperative Polygraphy" now do exist.
• Dueling Shows: Runs against another Post Modern primetime sitcom about a ragtag Five-Token Band of misfits in school, Glee.
  • The principal of the high school in Glee plays Abed's father.
  • In the second episode to feature Abed's father, "Basic Genealogy":

Jeff: (in tears) We always used to watch the shows she wanted to watch... I hate Glee. Pierce: (beginning to tear up too) Yeah, I'm not fond of Glee... Jeff: (sobs) I hate it...* sniff* ... I don't understand the appeal at all!

• There's as much poking fun as there is sniping. Previews for the premier of season two depicted Betty White confused as to whether she was guest starring in either Community or Glee.
  • In "Modern Warfare" Jeff tells the Greendale Glee Club to "write some original songs!", then in "Paradigms of Human Memory" we learn that their Glee Club died in a bus crash.
  • "Regional Holiday Music" dedicates a whole episode to how Community feels about Glee
  • Season 2 changes some of the focus to Shit My Dad Says, with a sub plot about Troy's twitter account, Old White Man Says, collecting the insane rantings of Pierce with Pierce wanting to cash in on it with a sitcom. The series premiere of that show was even the same night as the season 2 premiere (which had that Troy subplot).
  • In part due to the focus on nerdom in general and later being put up against each other in the same time slot, there is a certain rivalry with The Big Bang Theory. It's more apparent from the Community fanbase than anywhere else.
• Executive Meddling:
  • On the DVD commentaries for season one, the producers discuss some of the various ways in which executives got involved in the process. In particular, the scenes between Annie and Pierce in "Advanced Criminal Law" were gradually supposed to get a lot nastier in tone between the two, but the executives balked and requested that they be watered down somewhat.
  • Another example of Tropes Are Not Bad is that originally Harmon was forced by NBC execs to hire females for half of his writing staff. He ended up appreciating their skill and kept hiring a large number of females writers even after the corporate rule was dropped.
  • After the show was renewed for a shortened fourth season (but moved to a Friday Night Death Slot), Dan Harmon was fired as showrunner. This resulted in quite a Seasonal Rot.
    • Regarding implications by network brass that he'd stay on as a contractually obligated "executive consulting something or other", Harmon writes on his blog, "I’m not saying you can’t make a good version of Community without me, but I am definitely saying that you can’t make my version of it unless I have the option of saying 'it has to be like this or I quit' roughly 8 times a day."
• Friday Night Death Slot: It was announced that Community would in fact return for a fourth season...at 8:30 PM on Fridays. The show wasn't cancelled after Season 4 however.
• Harpo Does Something Funny: Donald Glover is basically left to his own devices in several scenes.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: The show advertises itself this way.
  • One commercial specifically referred to Ken Jeong (Senor Chang) as "That guy from The Hangover."
    • Apparently he teaches Spanish when he's not commanding an army of LARPers.
  • The actor who plays Abed's dad also plays the principal on Dueling Show Glee.

Jeff: (upon seeing him approaching) "Holy... war."

• Senior Community College Correspondent John Oliver.
  • The accounting teacher/debate coach is Wayne Jarvis!
  • Donald Glover (Troy) is from moderately well known online comedy troupe Derrickcomedy, creators of such YouTube classics as "Bro Rape" and "Spelling Bee".
    • For alternative hip-hop fans, it's more of a Hey, It's That Voice! - or at least it would be if Childish Gambino didn't openly identify himself as Donald Glover and repeatedly reference his role as Troy in his songs. Dude can rhyme a lot harder than "donde-esta-la-biblioteca".
    • The rest of Derrickcomedy also cameo as a sketch group that feeds Pierce movie riff jokes in season 1.
  • Danny Pudi (Abed) was in several commercials before doing this show, from McDonald's snack wraps to the Blackberry "butt dialing". He has even appeared as an annoyed customer in a Walgreens training video.
  • Wait, how did Trudy Campbell get here? Why is she nineteen? Shouldn't she be, like, seventy? And why is she Jewish?
  • Oh hey, it's Jay Johnston as a police officer, yet again.
  • In "Beginner Pottery", some of the study group takes a pottery class taught by Buster Bluth while the others take a sailing class taught by Steve Austin.
  • The pool coach is Shawn Hunter's dad! Also, Slinky The Dog in Toy Story 3!
  • Yes, Chevy Chase is now ready for primetime.
  • Star-Burns is the creator of Moral Orel.
  • Lee Jordan is Magnitude. Who the hell saw that coming.
  • The pregnant girl in Abed's child-delivery background story in The Psychology of Letting Go is Jenny Swanson.
  • Apparently Nurse Rose has a thing for guys with impossibly good hair, and a pattern of getting ditched for other women and disappearing forever. Sorry, Professor Slater.
  • Two of the stoner set are Morgan Grimes and Badger. Well, at least they're in college...
  • This film answers the question of what would have happened to Rhoda on Earth 2 - she would have gone to community college instead of MIT, and not been a lesbian.
  • "Custody Law and Eastern European Diplomacy" has Enver Gjokaj as Lukka, again showing his affinity for accents.
  • Stephen Tobolowsky as the Whos the Boss? professor in "Competitive Wine Tasting".
  • The Vice-Dean of Greendale's Air Conditioning Repair Annex is John Goodman.
  • Zabu goes to Greendale and plays Abed in Abed's short films.
  • Yo, Jeff. You come at the Biology Professor, you best not miss.
  • Bill Haverchuck grew up to be a Poli Sci teacher.
  • Hey, it's Patton Oswalt!
  • The Drag Queen who sang about having a "pocket full of Hawthornes" is none other than Shangela.
  • Blake doesn't think Pierce is on the list for the Bar Mitzvah.
  • Shut up, Leonard, everyone knows you can control time!
• Newbie Boom: Its addition to Netflix in April 2020 finally gave it the viewing figures it deserved.
• One of Us: Dan Harmon.
• Post Script Season: Season 5. It even opens with an episode called "Repilot" that has everyone re-enroll after their dreams didn't pan out.
• Production Posse: With Channel 101:
  • Abed is based on Channel 101 star Abed Gheith, who Dan Harmon pushed for to get the role.
  • Fellow Channel 101 alumni Sona Panos, Dave Seger and David B. Lyons work on the series under Harmon.
  • Chevy Chase, John Oliver and Joel McHale all had cameo roles in Episode 9 of Harmon's Channel 101 series Water and Power.
  • The Dean Craig Pelton and Professor Ian Duncan are named after Channel 101 stars Dean Pelton and Ian Duncan. Dean told me Dan's just lazy with names.
  • Abed's Britta, Abed's Annie and Abed's Abed are all played by 101ers (Jenny Flack, Kelsy Abbott and Sandeep Parikh, respectively.)
  • The Cast attended the Channel 101 "Channy" awards: Footage here and here.
• Star-Making Role: Pretty much everyone bar the already accomplished Chevy Chase. It's partly why the show ended at Season 6, the cast was now in such high demand.
• Uncanceled: NBC pulled the plug after Season 5 only for Yahoo to pick it up for its sixth and final season.
• The Wiki Rule: http://community-sitcom.wikia.com/wiki/Community_Wiki
• What Could Have Been:
  • Patrick Stewart, John Cleese, and Fred Willard were considered for the role of Pierce.
  • There was going to be a strict four-season story but Dan's firing for the fourth season derailed those plans. Most of Season 5 was damage control to get things back on track.
• Word of God:
  • Abed's "quirks" were, according to http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/09/mf_harmon/all/1 intended to be some form of autism based on Harmon's own Self-Diagnosis on internet tests, although "Competitive Ecology" has him imply that he is also face-blind.
  • The girl Abed dances The Lindbergh Lean with in "Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts" is Danielle Harmon from "Pascal's Triangle Revisited"
  • "Gwynnifer" in "Cooperative Calligraphy" doesn't exist. It's just Jeff's code for sex with Britta.
  • There was never a reveal planned for the Ass Crack Bandit from "Basic Intergluteal Numinsmatics" with the episode being written so it could have been anyone. Though the 2020 Zoom meeting reveals that most of the cast, bar Alison Brie and Dan Harmon himself, thinks it was Annie. Alison was quick shocked to learn of this.