One of the things I really like about what they do with Abed is avoiding what I call the "Matthew on News Radio Problem".

(warning, this is nitty, I've also mentioned it before)

Matthew was also problematic for me because he wasn't just quirky or weird or dumb. He always stuck me as somebody who suffered from some degree of mental illness, but it was obviously never mentioned and he was always played for jokes. It just makes the character more punchline than person and not somebody with whom you can identify at all.

I love that with Abed, he's not just "weird", he's got a real issue that is still used for jokes, as a setup for an ep like this, but that slight touch of reality makes a huge difference in identifying with the character and adding a lot of genuine heart to the ep. It's the difference between a total cartoon and a real person with real problems that manifest themselves in ways that can be leveraged for comedic affect.

What really worked for me about this was that they really made the stop motion work for me as not just a gimmick, but what Abed was seeing and feeling. Most of the visual gags and what not had some depth to them.

Also- the fact that they never departed from the notion that we were really in a room with people coming and going and really trying to help their friend helped ground the ep and keep it from feeling like pure stunt parody.

The only issue, as I mentioned before- is that having Oliver's character be an ass through most of the show AND find the card just felt wrong to me. I guess I just would have preferred that that revelation come from one of his friends.

Dids,
I am not sure I agree with your take on Abed, but Matthew in Newsradio is definitely the classic example for this syndrome.

I am Jewish and not really familiar with the classic Christmas stop motion animated specials, so I didn't really enjoy the parody in this. They did have some nice heart-warming moments, but the ending felt sickly sweet. KneeCo mentioned this, but the voice acting outside of John Oliver was really weak and it caused a lot of jokes to bomb or the rhythm to be slightly off.

I loved this episode... Thought it was an instant classic really.

So random and entertaining (Teradactyl self destruct?)

The only real issue I had with the voice acting is that I felt like I was hearing more Alison Brie and not Annie. Some of the usual inflection the character has wasn't there.

I'm not at all a fan of the stop motion holiday specials. This worked for me just as a journey into Abed's mind without really considering the parody aspects of it.

Shocked this episode was so polarizing. I thought it was close to perfect. The LOST joke w my favorite. Chang and the button was great too.

Everything that makes Community a cool/original show was on display last night. I will be crushed if this show gets canceled. Tell your friends, spread the word!

Britta looked like a zombie to me

Stuff like this was said last week too. Arguments that they're not *trying* for funny, they're trying for emotional/resonant/touching/character-building/sad/etc...

As I said last week, I really hate that notion, it's insulting to comedy (and plainly not true) that you can't be both.

Why would you even be working in comedy if you think it somehow a lesser form of storytelling? (which it necessarily would be if it didn't allow " getting deep into the characters and making them 3 dimensional")

I didn't really get the card. The revelation already came earlier.

I mean we all knew what caused Abed's Christmas crisis based on the conversation on the train (and obv Oliver would have heard that, being in the room).

Sure he could have brought it up and fleshed it out, but we really did not need him to find a card and read it that spells things out in such a weird fashion? ("Son, I have a new family now. Happy Holidays!" lol)

Maybe it's the 39 degree fever, maybe it's that I generally hate Christmas episodes but this did absolutely nothing for me. Ballsy move to try it but no good.

This is how I felt about Troy turning 21, but last night just didn't do it for me. The singing sucked, the good jokes were too rare and the story didn't have me caring.

this couldn't be more wrong.

pretty sure fans of the South Park movie would disagree vehemently.

and some of my favorite simpsons episodes are ones where they sing, A Streetcar Named Marge comes to mind right off the top.

agreed, I'd def add this to the list too.

I watched the episode a second time and appreciated it more but not like I usually do on second viewing. Certainly in the bottom 50% of Community episodes, but I still liked it a lot. It was more clever and interesting than either funny or heart-warming, but it had isolated moments of genius. This show, even when it fails, is still obviously created by a team of mad scientist wunderkinds.

I don't think anybody is actually making the argument you're suggesting. Nobody is saying comedy can't be all the things you say it can be. However, the show clearly decided that they wanted to take a less comedic tone with these eps. Now that might not be something you enjoy- but I think it's pretty narrow minded to say "HEY TV SHOW, YOU ARE A HALF HOUR COMEDY AND THUS YOU SHALL ATTEMPT TO BE FUNNY AT ALL TIMES AND STAY IN YOUR DAMN BOX".

So I think you can say "I did not enjoy this ep because it's not what I want out of the show".

I don't think it's fair to say "Somebody did a bad job because the show wasn't funny"- because that's clearly not what they were trying to do in the first place.

Community has clearly shown that they can pull off funny and sad and heartwarming all at the same time. That's why I really enjoy it when they make an even bigger departure from what's expected and do something that we just don't see a lot of in this format. In a TV landscape that's just full of uninspired, formulaic shows I'll take a half hour of conversation between two hairs on Jeff's balls before another ep of 2.5 Men.

Yes, you did.

You suggested The Office's failure came from attempting comedy over character building, as if there is something adversarial about the two.

That's a pretty poor understanding of what I said.

The point about the office is that they sacrificed any attempt at development (or even just consistency in behavior) in the name of ****** jokes. That isn't at all suggesting that you can't do both- just that one show in particular leaned way too far in one direction and did so ineptly.

GOOD comedy allows for growth in characters and some consistency in their actions and motivations and is funny at the same time. The Office just abandoned any of those things so that they could write ****** jokes about Michael being a clueless oaf.

Excellent, we agree.

Further to the latter requirement of this definition, by virtue of failing to be funny, the last two weeks of Community have not been good comedy.

I think that's a fair statement- but I think where we disagree is that the mission of the TV show Community is not necessarily to be "good comedy" as much as it is to be a good television show.

Which brings us back to my initial objection.

As a fan of comedy, I'm offended by any suggestion that good comedy is somehow incompatible/lesser than good storytelling.

e.g. people suggesting, in a complimentary fashion, "this week Community took a week off from being great comedy and instead was GREAT TV", or "they didn't deliver laughs because they wanted to tell a profound story", ..., as if you can't do both.

I would agree that both those statements as written are silly.

How about "This week Community took a week off from being great comedy and focused on a profound storytelling and it was STILL great TV".

Ive been told that my new avatar+loc combo suck

I am a big Community fan and it is currently my favorite comedy on TV. I thought this episode was the weakest episode they ever did. It just didn't work for me.

It's cool. A lot of people don't like it when the show goes really gung ho with the sincerity or abandon a bunch of jokes for emotional stuff. I'm fascinated by the shifts in tone, etc.

It still implies the same false choice between great comedy on the one hand and profound storytelling on the other.

That said, of course someone is entitled to say they loved Troy's 21 bday party even if they did think it was funny. It's a preference after all.

I'm so glad I can enjoy great TV when it's on, regardless of whether I am laughing or crying OR BOTH! =p The Community episode was heartwarming, effective and had just enough laughs to make me feel a large range of emotions during the show. I loved the scene where Annie detached the car so Abed could continue his quest to find the meaning of Christmas. Troy had Abed's back during that scene as well. For me it's a modern day Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

I'm re-watching tonight and looking out for Chang, I didn't catch any of his lurking moments I've read about.

I find it hilarious ppl have complained "the stop motion figures didn't look like them at all." Isn't that kind of the point? The episode wasn't produced by Dreamworks or Pixar lol The overall look and feel was great IMO, anything more "realistic" would have felt strange.

A+, phenomenal, best of the series so far.