Monsters of Television

“Instead of Alzheimer’s, Abed has … someone who likes him.”

With all due apologies to 30 Rock, but I’m afraid that Dan Harmon and his crackerjack cast may be usurping your place as my favorite comedy on NBC. (Don’t worry, Tina! You’re still funnier than Mercy! In different ways though.)

Community, as I’ve said, has been growing leaps and bounds since “Introduction to Statistics” (and if that episode didn’t do it for you, then try “Debate 109” or “Comparative Religion”), culminating in the past three episodes as the show as found itself in terms of format (i.e., the study table moment at the halfway point), characters, and tone. The show’s done this to enough of an extent that I found myself had pressed to take many notes because I laughing so much (a hard feat to do when you’re watching the episode on Hulu by yourself in a library group study room).

I could just do a bulleted list of the great stuff that happened, with Abed’s vampire self at the top of the list (I thought it more of a vampiric Velociraptor) (and now I’ve just scared the shit out of Randall Munroe). But if I really thought that would be productive, I could just give a hyperlink to the episode and call it a day (I do still have Lost and The Good Wife to write about, after all). Instead, let’s talk about gym shorts.

Changing for gym classes is never a fun experience. It can be embarrassing and smelly and annoying. The situation is also a  common story of many sitcoms — horrible things happen to people in the locker rooms of high schools — and if the school has mandated uniforms, it can be especially bad. However, the situation is normally located around some geeky non-athletic kid who forgot the note from his mom excusing him from gym class. Wedgies, stolen (or ruined) clothes, awkwardness about the developing body all come into play in some shape or form.

Community takes this sitcom staple and has a bit of fun with it. Unlike most people who take a phys ed class, Jeff is psyched about taking billiards. He’s wearing his $300 jeans and leather jacket and probably brought his own cue stick. Greendale, however, requires students to be in the proper phys ed attire, which is the too-tight tee-shirt and the short-shorts. While the episode locates the conflict around image, it isn’t about Jeff’s body image (Joel McHale is toned!) but about the image he projects, which has consistently been one of coolness. And it’s hard to look cool in short shorts.

That this plot managed to tie back into the story of the rest of the gang convincing Abed to approach an attractive student just shows how nicely the series is able to keep its ensemble functioning as a unit while allowing a spotlight to shine on certain performers (in this case McHale and Pudi). Through this plot, and Abed’s explanation of it, Jeff realizes that the clothes don’t matter so long as he knows (and his friends know) that he’s cool, in the same way that Abed trusts who he is enough to try and change so that his friends will be happy.

The speech explaining this point feels natural given that the show has established its genre savvy by explaining that the episode is essentially an after-school special (or Fat Albert episode). Again, the ironic and sweet get balanced in ways that allow the show’s humor to hit silliness (naked billiards, for example) and still feel grounded. It’s that groundedness that I’m responding to; it’s that groundedness that makes the show funny.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• Coach Bogner’s sports portrait in his office (complete with shorts) is masterful.
• Danny Pudi’s mimicry, while done in a parodic fashion, is quite good. His Don Draper seduction scene is beyond funny. He and Enver Gjokaj need to team up against Jeffrey Donnovan’s Michael Westen on Burn Notice.
• White Abed was, interestingly, very uncanny valley for me. I didn’t initially recognize Pudi, and any time White Abed was shown, I wasn’t entirely convinced it wasn’t just a very good look-a-like. The joke didn’t really work until the White Abed acknowledges that he wishes he could be more like Brown Joey.
• I think I would be pretty offended being compared to Zach Braff. Definitely more so than if compared to Hillary Swank.