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Community: Season 4 Premiere February 7, Old Timeslot

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Posts

  • izzybizzyb AdelaideRegistered User regular
    Community relies on humour delivery that you have to think about. If they start dumbing down lines the whole edifice will collapse.

  • NappuccinoNappuccino Surveyor of Things and Stuff Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    izzyb wrote: »
    Community relies on humour delivery that you have to think about. If they start dumbing down lines the whole edifice will collapse.

    Its not a matter of thinking about it, in this case. Hell, they've been way more on the nose 100's of times in the past- like "Sorry Britta, somethings are funny because they make no sense... and that is not one of them" and "She envoked friendship to undercut the laugh and we're still laughing. That's how funny it is." or "What's wrong Annie? You came out smiling but then your smile faded as you leaned against the door."

    If you want to complain about dumbing things down, those are the lines to direct your attention to. "Switched" isn't about needing to think it through. I got it immediately after he said it (to behonest, I got it before he said it... but then he said the line which was too vague to really draw the connection at first). However, just because you get something doesn't make it inherently funny (even if the idea it is trying to communicate is).

    Nappuccino on
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    Rorus Raz wrote: »
    There's also the possibility you just can't really grow a bear like other guys.

    Not even BEAR vaginas can defeat me!
    cakemikz wrote: »
    And then I rub actual cake on myself.
    Loomdun wrote: »
    thats why you have chest helmets
  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    I actually skipped right past the joke of that line. "Oh, he's angry because they switched, and now he's the bad cop, and he's upset because he wanted to be the good cop." But now I see the true funny! Layers

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  • emnmnmeemnmnme Registered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    I actually skipped right past the joke of that line. "Oh, he's angry because they switched, and now he's the bad cop, and he's upset because he wanted to be the good cop." But now I see the true funny! Layers

    :?
    :v:

  • MusicoolMusicool Registered User regular
    Has Magnitude ever said anything but "pop pop"? because in Jeffs closing arguments he shouts "HEY! That's mine!" :O

    In the paintball finale he talked about being a one man army. Unless that was all spoken in "pop pops" and it was just translated for us in not-Communityville to understand.

    Burtletoy wrote: »
    I disagree completely.

    hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
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  • bloodatonementbloodatonement Registered User regular
    He saida few words before his first pop pop

    Zdy0pmg.jpg
    Steam ID: Good Life
  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    He saida few words before his first pop pop

    "yo yo yo"

    edit- also:

    tumblr_m2nky8ojGJ1qbk34oo1_400.jpg

    KalTorak on
  • PoultryGeistPoultryGeist The Ghostly Chicken Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    KalTorak wrote: »
    He saida few words before his first pop pop

    "yo yo yo"

    edit- also:
    tumblr_m2nky8ojGJ1qbk34oo1_400.jpg


    Yeah that creeps me out every time I remember it's him.
    izzyb wrote: »
    Community relies on humour delivery that you have to think about. If they start dumbing down lines the whole edible will collapse.

    Fix'd

    PoultryGeist on
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  • NappuccinoNappuccino Surveyor of Things and Stuff Registered User regular
    edited April 2012

    izzyb wrote: »
    Community relies on humour delivery that you have to think about. If they start dumbing down lines the whole edible will collapse.

    Fix'd

    Why do you have to bring up that Edible Complex every other day :P

    Nappuccino on
    Like to write? Want to get e-published? Give us a look-see at http://wednesdaynightwrites.com/
    Rorus Raz wrote: »
    There's also the possibility you just can't really grow a bear like other guys.

    Not even BEAR vaginas can defeat me!
    cakemikz wrote: »
    And then I rub actual cake on myself.
    Loomdun wrote: »
    thats why you have chest helmets
  • LavaKnightLavaKnight Registered User regular
    So Starburns
    Is he really dead, or was that just another Law and Order in-joke?

  • SaraLunaSaraLuna Registered User regular
    yep
    Dino {lastname} was a writer/consultant, not an actor and hated having to act in the show

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    yep
    Dino {lastname} was a writer/consultant, not an actor and hated having to act in the show

    Well that is a INCREDIBLE
    Way to write him out of the show

  • bloodatonementbloodatonement Registered User regular
    yep
    Dino {lastname} was a writer/consultant, not an actor and hated having to act in the show

    Well that is a INCREDIBLE
    Way to write him out of the show
    I think the last page has a link to an interview with him abou it.

    Zdy0pmg.jpg
    Steam ID: Good Life
  • HandgimpHandgimp R+L=J Family PhotoRegistered User regular
    yep
    Dino {lastname} was a writer/consultant, not an actor and hated having to act in the show

    Well that is a INCREDIBLE
    Way to write him out of the show
    I think the last page has a link to an interview with him abou it.

    But watch out for the last 3 paragraphs.

    PwH4Ipj.jpg
  • Captain TragedyCaptain Tragedy Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Handgimp wrote: »
    yep
    Dino {lastname} was a writer/consultant, not an actor and hated having to act in the show

    Well that is a INCREDIBLE
    Way to write him out of the show
    I think the last page has a link to an interview with him abou it.

    But watch out for the last 3 paragraphs.

    If people want to read the article but are worried about accidentally hitting upon the big spoilers at the end - here's the text with the offending paragraph cut out:
    If you look up in the sky tonight and notice a star shining oddly — like there was something just a little off about it — you can nod poignantly and know that he has gone to a better place. Alex Osbourne, or “Star-Burns” to those who knew him least, is no longer with us.

    Last night, at the tail end of “Basic Lupine Urology,” Community’s shrewd Law & Order homage, that quirky, shady, lizard-toting, top-hatted, leather-vested student with funky facial hair seemed to have met his end when his car was rear-ended, causing the makeshift meth lab in his trunk to explode. We were spared the grisly visuals, instead watching Professor Kane (Michael K. Williams) receive a phone call with the tragic news. Next week’s episode allows proper space to mourn, as it picks up with his funeral.

    Why was Star-Burns taken from Planet Greendale so soon? He had so many more reptiles to station on his body and drug deals to attempt to make! The reason is simple: He asked for it — literally. Dino Stamatopoulos, who plays Star-Burns, is actually a consulting producer and writer on Community, and he requested that his character meet his maker so he could focus on his main job. It’s hard to believe that a scribe who got to moonlight as a cult character on a beloved network TV comedy would ask to be written off, but Stamatopoulos just wasn’t itching to be in the semi-spotlight.

    “I’m not an actor,” he explained to EW via email. “I don’t enjoy waiting around for hours on set, I hate when people touch my eyes and neck (make-up department!), I can’t learn lines quickly (yes, even the amount of lines I get), and I don’t need other actors (Joel McHale) asking me why I never got my teeth fixed. There are certain acting roles that I don’t mind doing because I’ll write them and I’ll know how a specific character is supposed to behave. So in those instances, I’m comfortable with performing. The Star-Burns character was basically a conduit for the joke-sideburns and the one-note attitude about not being happy when people called him ‘Star-Burns’. I didn’t have a character in mind so it’s always been an uphill battle for me to perform the part. Yes, he’s been given funny lines, and I suppose the writers made him more like me eventually, but playing yourself is very difficult as well. I really don’t know how people perceive me. Obviously it’s as a scumbag, which is fair because I am, but that doesn’t mean I can play one on TV.”

    And he didn’t ask to in the first place — rather, the job found him. At the beginning of season 1, series creator Dan Harmon needed an actor to sit patiently in a chair for hours so the hair and make-up department could figure out a way to pull off those now-famous star-shaped sideburns that initially defined this extremely ancillary character. “To pay an actor to do that was going to be expensive — it was cheaper to make a writer do it,” he says. (Harmon, by the way, declined to comment on that feud with Chevy Chase.) “I called Dino and asked him if he’d do it and he said yes.”

    He decided to throw Stamatopoulos on camera in this low-stakes role, and viewers quickly took an interest in Star-Burns. The writers did too: Not only was Star-Burns an amusing visual gag, he represented another point of view in the halls of Greendale. “What I always loved about him was that joke where Jeff (McHale) is ripping on him from afar,” says Community story editor Megan Ganz, the obsessive L&O fan who wrote last night’s episode. “And then you cut over to Star-Burns and Star-Burns is calling Jeff a douchebag. That was the first moment you’re telling the audience, ‘Hey, just because we particularly choose to focus on this group doesn’t make them heroes.’”

    No one would call Star-Burns a hero. In fact, he was “the one-man seedy underbelly of Greendale,” as Ganz perfectly sums up, giving drugs to Pierce (Chase) in a Halloween episode (one of Stamatopoulos’ favorite moments), and getting kicked out of biology class after trying unsuccessfully to persuade Prof. Kane to “get a Breaking Bad type of thing going” and venture with him into the drug business. While brainstorming the L&O episode, the writers made the logical choice to make Star-Burns a suspect early on: He confesses to stealing supplies from the classroom for his meth lab. And as they were deciding to include a fatal phone call twist at the end of the episode à la L&O, one man who’d been lobbying to have his character killed off appeared in a lightbulb above their heads.

    Not that there wasn’t some hesitation in ridding Greendale of one of its most colorful characters and formidable forces. “My first thought when we talked about killing Star-Burns was, ‘Oh no!’ because the whole point was that each year he was going to have a new affectation,” says Harmon. “I wanted the show to run forever and have the guy turn into this umber hulk covered in branches and monocles and roller blades, and unable to function as a human being because of all these things that identify him. But then I think of Daffy Duck being tiny and grabbing that big pearl and saying, ‘Mine, mine, mine!’ and the clam shell slowly closing, which is how I always perceive people who won’t let go of stuff in the moment. You need to be Bugs Bunny and not Daffy Duck. You took a left turn at Albuquerque, you’re in a genie’s cave, you have to deal with it on the fly. That’s where joy comes from… I keep finding on this show that plans are the antithesis of good TV.”

    While Stamatopoulos was a bit disappointed that his demise wasn’t seen on camera (“That would have been cool, but expensive. I can see why they didn’t do it. But I did think it was funny”), he found a certain appeal in Star-Burns being offed as opposed to, say, transferring to an overseas community college. “I thought to myself, ‘If my character dies, I’d be in a very elite group of characters dying on a prime time network show,” he says. “So, that was definitely an attractive prospect for me. It would be me, Coach from Cheers (who really died, gulp) and that guy from Two and a Half Babies.”

    He may be dead, but he’s not gone just yet. In next week’s episode, the study group attends his funeral, and we will see him in some sort of “video” form. And McHale wonders if the joke could live on: “My guess is Dan will find a way to make him a ghost and continue to torture him by making him stay on set. Who knows? His twin brother will show up and it’ll be like, ‘What the f—?’”

    (spoiler paragraph removed)

    And that may be the way to say thank you to the man who lived on the edge — and on the edges of the show. “He was the first of the Muppets,” opines Harmon. “He was the first Community ‘character.’ Star-Burns demonstrated how much vitality can grow in the cracks. You don’t have to pitch a network or an audience or a focus group the idea of a character for that character to become real. Life just grows on your TV show, and that’s a force to be respected and harnessed.”

    Asked how he would like Star-Burns to be remembered, Stamatopoulos humbly says: “With a memory. I’m not joking. Do you even think that guy will be remembered?”

    Captain Tragedy on
  • KrathoonKrathoon Registered User regular
    It would be great if things that Starburns was doing keep surfacing on the show and they get weirder and weirder.

  • mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    You know, parody/gimick episodes are one of those things that in the abstract I think they need to do less of. But then I watch one, and I laugh my ass off.

    Just got caught up, watched from the pillowfight episode through this one. And both the parody episodes were great.

    I think this may be the best so far, though...probably just because I was a huge L&O fan back in the day. Back when it was a show, not a franchise. When the shit was real. Big fan of the Orbach years, which this episode definitely seemed to be channeling.

  • PoultryGeistPoultryGeist The Ghostly Chicken Registered User regular
    One of my favourite bits from this series, just thought I'd share

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGHNwrBLTfs

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  • valiancevaliance Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    _J_ wrote: »
    We get the female perspective from Annie and Britta.
    We get the black perspective from Troy.
    We get the older perspective from Peirce.

    I don't think this is true even a little bit. I don't think we get anyone's "perspective" particularly.

    that said, Pierce and Shirley are definitely the two most expendable (only expendable) characters. The show couldn't go on without Abed, Pierce, Troy, Jeff or Britta. It'd be hurt by losing Shirley and Pierce, but not mortally; it could survive. I think at this point the dean brings at least as much to the show as Pierce or Shirley, and way more than Chang, who has been misused and overused and who I do not really miss in his absence. That said everyone has their moments and I don't want anyone to go, even if Chang, Pierce and Shirley are tough to write for and are frequently misused.

    and frankly the Pierce is evil plotline from season 2 was pretty great, and Shirley shines when she actually gets a chance.

    KalTorak wrote: »
    Shirley pulls out a gun.

    (also check out Wyatt Cynac in the background of the Office shot)

    I was like "is that Wyatt Cenac"? awesome.
    KalTorak wrote: »
    The dean as the Wire-fan surrogate was a great touch on that line.

    Yeah, his delivery on it was perfect. Maybe my favorite part of a great episode.

    yeah that was excellent. :^:

    valiance on
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    valiance wrote: »
    _J_ wrote: »
    We get the female perspective from Annie and Britta.
    We get the black perspective from Troy.
    We get the older perspective from Peirce.

    I don't think this is true even a little bit. I don't think we get anyone's "perspective" particularly.

    that said, Pierce and Shirley are definitely the two most expendable (only expendable) characters. The show couldn't go on without Abed, Pierce, Troy, Jeff or Britta. It'd be hurt by losing Shirley and Pierce, but not mortally; it could survive. I think at this point the dean brings at least as much to the show as Pierce or Shirley, and way more than Chang, who has been misused and overused and who I do not really miss in his absence. That said everyone has their moments and I don't want anyone to go, even if Chang, Pierce and Shirley are tough to write for and are frequently misused.

    and frankly the Pierce is evil plotline from season 2 was pretty great, and Shirley shines when she actually gets a chance.

    Honestly, the only two characters I see as not expendable are Jeff (who most often provides the outside (i.e. the viewers) look into the insanity of the group and school) and Abed, who provides the source of most of the meta humor.

    The character interaction stuff is a strong point of the series, but I don't necassarily believe you need any particular character outside of those two to pull that off.

    Chang can go though: he's lost what made him great and the newer version has run it's course IMO. If they had kept him friends with Pierce that may have been a good avenue to keep him around, but they squelched that for a joker, so oh well.



  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    Who's worthy of Mjolnir?

    Abed is.

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  • VariableVariable Mouth Congress Stroke Me Lady FameRegistered User regular
    I find it so strange to have people so anxious to get rid of a character from a show. I just don't understand.

    BNet-Vari#1998 | Switch-SW 6960 6688 8388 | Steam | Twitch
  • PoultryGeistPoultryGeist The Ghostly Chicken Registered User regular
    The only 'expendable' characters in my opinion are Pierce, Shirley and Chang (unless they can get him back to where he was). If they lost any of the others it would wreck the group dynamic.

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  • The Dude With HerpesThe Dude With Herpes Lehi, UTRegistered User regular
    No comments on the scheduling weirdness for the last 3 episodes of S3 for Community?

    May 17th:
    8:00 Community — “The First Chang Dynasty”
    8:30 30 Rock season finale
    9:00 Community — “Introduction to Finality”
    9:30 Community — “Digital Estate Planning” (season finale)

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  • CervetusCervetus Registered User regular
    mcdermott wrote: »
    You know, parody/gimick episodes are one of those things that in the abstract I think they need to do less of. But then I watch one, and I laugh my ass off.

    This is why I think Season 2 has better episodes, but I like Season 1 more as a season.

  • initiatefailureinitiatefailure Registered User regular
    No comments on the scheduling weirdness for the last 3 episodes of S3 for Community?

    May 17th:
    8:00 Community — “The First Chang Dynasty”
    8:30 30 Rock season finale
    9:00 Community — “Introduction to Finality”
    9:30 Community — “Digital Estate Planning” (season finale)

    NBC closing out sweeps in a big way? Not sure what to say about it. it'll be a fun night for us. I hope they advertise it to people who aren't us and permanently in the loop though.

  • ThatOneYoYoGuyThatOneYoYoGuy Registered User regular
    It's hard to guess why there's 3 Community episodes in one night - they could be burning off episodes, but on the other hand, this is airing in the middle of sweeps.

    I'm sure they'll get a recent return if they actually advertise.

    I hear that NBC reveals the fall line up earlier that week, so we should know it's fate at that time. (Even if it's not in this Fall's lineup, they could still renew it for a midseason replacement.)

  • TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    What they should do is say they're going to air a long lost Friends episode intermittently during that two hour block, so people have to sit through it. Success!

    I saw that a show I didn't even know was on, Best Friends Forever, got canned on Wednesday, so the continuing falling of comedy trees in the NBC forest is a good sign! Until the wildfires come.....

  • Captain TragedyCaptain Tragedy Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    NBC's Upfronts (which is the point where they reveal their schedule) are May 14th, so we should know Community's fate before the final episodes air. I read an article that said NBC might reveal their schedule next Monday (though I couldn't find any other confirmation, so that might just be a rumor), so it could be sooner.

    Captain Tragedy on
  • The Dude With HerpesThe Dude With Herpes Lehi, UTRegistered User regular
    Yeah I guess my concern is it feels almost like dumping, and worried about what that implies for a possible season 4.

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  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    You don't burn shows during sweeps.

    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • Captain TragedyCaptain Tragedy Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    As the article indicates, this probably has more to do with there originally being 2 episodes of Awake scheduled instead, back when there were still high hopes for the show and the ratings hadn't taken a dive yet. NBC assumed (probably correctly) that even Community's paltry ratings would be better for sweeps than the ratings of 2 Awakes.

    Captain Tragedy on
  • DehumanizedDehumanized Registered User regular
    Yeah I wouldn't read into this much. Just another weird side effect of the scheduling shell game that NBC's played with all their Thursday shows this season, and that Awake performed really poorly.

  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    I just realized that Greendale's Student Health Center provides an... interesting variation on the Greendale Flag emblem:

    csYQS.png

  • bloodatonementbloodatonement Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    That is from the episode where Pierce's mom died, which is before the study group created the flag, so maybe it's the old emblem.

    bloodatonement on
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    Steam ID: Good Life
  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    hmm you're right. Too bad, I thought it would be funny that the health center logo is goatse-ing the flag emblem.

  • The Dude With HerpesThe Dude With Herpes Lehi, UTRegistered User regular
    KalTorak wrote: »
    hmm you're right. Too bad, I thought it would be funny that the health center logo is goatse-ing the flag emblem.

    Not just goatse'ing it.

    Goatse'ing it as a community.

    "It takes a village to stretch an Anus"

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  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Sigh, I went twelve years on the internet before I found out what goatse was.

    Damn you, PA forum. Damn you straight to angelfire.

    AManFromEarth on
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  • DeebaserDeebaser on my way to work in a suit and a tie Ahhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered User regular
    Sigh, I went twelve years on the internet before I found out what goatse was.

    Damn you, PA forum. Damn you straight to angelfire.

    Yesssssssssssssssss

  • DeebaserDeebaser on my way to work in a suit and a tie Ahhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered User regular
    Aman, at least now you can google image search London 2012 and get in on the joke years too late.

    It's SFW, the city of London had an Internet poll to decide their logo. One of the entries was hilarious

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