Community 101: The Locomotive That Runs On Us

Any of you that follow me on Twitter or are friends with me on Facebook (which, given what I know about the demographics of my readers means approximately %115 of you) might have noticed that I'm pretty upset by the recent string of decisions by NBC to try and destroy my spirits--I mean delay the return of Community. In the interest of full disclosure, and linguistic clarity, I've decided to offer you a lexicon of the major terms, phrases and call signs of the Community Memedom.

#SixSeasonsAndAMovie

The primary identifier of Greendale Human Beings, aside from being middle to high earners between the ages of 18-35 who are willing to do anything to save a show beside actually watch it while it's being shown on television, (that's a television demographics joke, for those of you keeping track at home) is this charming little slogan. While it comes from humble origins, as a throwaway sight gag during a clip episode, it has become a mantra for people whose biggest problem is the withholding of a television program for marketing purposes. 

This is, actually, one of the easiest to understand terms in the bizarre lexicographic menagerie of the Community world: it means we want Six Seasons and a Movie worth of Community, preferably  uninterrupted by hiatuses prompted by NBC's attempt to promote a buddy cop show starring a St.Bernard named Bernie O'Brien who talks with a heavy Boston accent. Given that Community is a multiple award winner and emmy nominated show it seems reasonable for fans to suggest that it shouldn't have to be in a fight for its life against a monkey in scrubs and the reanimated corpse of "The Office," but here we are. 

Proper Usage: "Watching The Office is about as funny as being told you have Chlamydia. Bring back Community! #SixSeasonsAndAMovie."

#TheDarkestTimeline

One of my personal favorites. The slogan that launched a thousand ships and a million mediocre photoshop attempts. Contrary to popular belief, The Darkest Timeline is not exclusively a potential piece of prophecy referring to a future Romney Presidency. The Darkest Timeline is a closing credits gag from  Emmy nominated episode, named after the patented NBC show selection methodology,"Remedial Chaos Theory." The meme is invoked whenever the show is put into jeopardy and references the fact that as we enter into a universe without Community we must be departing into an alternate timeline where everything is horrible and all hope is lost. As we drive a path into this dark and pointless existence, the fact that there is a perfect alternate timeline where we have eliminated system racism, elected Jon Stewart president and returned to a regular weekly airing of Community is comforting to people like me. 

This meme even comes with a convenient symbol, a black goatee. Now you too can wear the standing symbol of evil twins everywhere to signify your lack of faith in a loving God and passion for pop culture references in your relationship driven network comedies. To be completely honest, and particularly selfish, this is actually pretty good for me. Movember is coming up and, as I've mentioned, I'm completely unable to grow a proper beard for myself so now I have a plausible excuse to wear a fake one all month. 

Proper Usage: Community has been canceled, forget "The Road," this is clearly #TheDarkestTimeline.

Annie's Boobs

This one is a little bit more disappointing than our previous entries. In an episode of Community where the Gang create a Goodellas inspired chicken finger smuggling operation Troy buys a monkey and calls it Annie's Boobs.  Being that Annie is a character with boobs, as well as a monkey, hilarity ensued. While the premise of the gag is absolute comedic genius, I understand the utility of this particular term is probably limited. It's helpful for the uninitiated to understand that Annie's Boobs can be a useful designator anatomically  OR zoologically,  if you find it difficult to differentiate between a monkey and female breasts during a conversation you're doing one or both of them horribly wrong. In spite of this, an explanation gives me a great opportunity to shoehorn an Alison Brie gif into this blog post which, based on polling, is the single greatest way to drive traffic in the history of the internet. 

October 19th

Our final entry in the list of things that the Internet is going to be yelling at you about also continues the trend of Community fans bizarre temporality fetish, October 19th. I'm going to offer this up as advanced warning, sometime in January when all of your cool friends start tweeting and Facebook posting about how January 17th is suddenly October 19th you'll thank me. The origins of this particular meme stem from the above video, where the Community gang offer an uplifting message that, no matter when the show comes back, it will be October 19th. 

A cute, hopeful, and funny message presented in a vaguely stockholm syndrome-y way. I can hardly imagine a better way to explain the relationship between Community and it's fans. 

And that, ladies and gentleman, is my brief introductory course in some of Community's more popular memes. Now, go watch the show and, for the love of God, when it comes back on television watch it. Us middle-class, college educated tv snobs have life hard enough without our favorite show being pulled out from under us.

Why I Need A Dog: The Jed Chronicles Volume 1

You cannot even begin to fathom how badly I want a dog. I know you think you want a dog (unless you want a cat, in which case you need to give your head a shake) but before you strap your big kid pants on and bring yourself into this equation you need to ask yourself a few important questions:

Take A long hard look at the light blue lips
of madness and consider that answer again.

1. Are you willing to fight me for a dog? My math skills aren't exactly streets ahead, but I've calculated my odds of trying to bully you into giving up on your doggy dreams at 100%. I'm going to find some way to force you to drop it, and I won't remove physical intimidation from my list of possible strategies. The reason is simple, there is a finite number of dogs in the world and every one you take lowers my odds of getting my dog. I know it only lowers those odds infinitesimally, but that won't stop me. Doubt it? Before you answer that you need to decide if you're willing to push a man who thinks Ke$ha qualifies as great music? Are You?




2. I already know exactly what kind of dog I want and we belong together. When the stars align and I get my Golden English Labrador-Retriever named after the greatest imaginary president in American History, Jed, the world will be, quite simply, a more correct place. One of the world's many tragedies is that I have been forced to live 22 years apart from my spirit animal. Another? That the world has been deprived of seeing me frolic around with an English Labrador Retriever. They're like a slightly lazier version of the smartest, cutest, most awesomest animal on the planet. It's like they genetically engineered a dog version of me. How does your piddly little "want" compare to a compulsion on the part of the entire world to right this current, perverse, anti-equilibrium?

3. I'm really lonely, and I probably need this more than you. (Imagine that being said in a tough/manly voice.)

I cannot impress upon you how adorable the world would be if I had a little/big/old/really-any-sort-at-all Golden English Labrador-Retriever. This is the kind of cute that gets hard-lined directly into your system. The kind of cute that hooks you so badly that the only way your sweet addiction can end is butt naked, covered in glitter and sugar in a ditch on the side of the 401 trying to recover from a 72 hour Nyan Cat and puppy picture bender of Hangover-ian proportions.



To make a long story short, I need a dog. I might not get one today, hell I might not even get one tomorrow. However, one day you will look over the horizon and spot a shining golden beacon of canine magnificence and you'll already know its name, Jed.