Community Season 4 DVD Commentary Recaps

PARANORMAL PARENTAGE COMMENTARY HIGHLIGHTS

Participants – Joel McHale, Alison Brie, Megan Ganz, Tristram Shapeero

- Annie’s Ring Girl effect was done by having her crawl backwards and reversing the footage. This might be common knowledge that that’s how they did it in The Ring, but it’s neat.
- Britta dressed as a ham to show that there’s nothing scarier than dressing as the exploitation of “faceful” animals. The original color of the costume apparently made it look like a ballsack, leading to a repaint under threat of added ballsack jokes to the script.
- Much of the music in this episode was written for Epidemeology, where it was later replaced by Abba.
- Scooby-Doo-ing around Pierce’s house has been kicked around for a few seasons now. Because that’s what the kids are demanding, claims Joel.
- For all legal purposes, Troy and Abed are dressed as “generic boy” and “tiger”. Abed got the Calvin role due to his being the more imaginative of the pair.
- Shirley was almost Zorro, who would’ve been constantly mistaken for the Hamburglar.
- Chris McKenna was always adamant that Pierce’s house be frozen in the Miami Vice era. Pierce’s house is a redressed version of the Greendale halls and classrooms.
- Many on-set gifs were made of Gillian in the ham costume. Alison pronounces “gif” with a hard g.
- The company that makes the Torg dolls is grateful for their exposure, having gotten a ton more orders after RCT.
- As they only had 1 and a half hallways to work with, most of the hallways of Pierce’s house are redressed and mirrored versions of the same hall. Pierce’s study is a redesigned Dean’s Office.
- Ganz tried to push an end-of-Mixology sort of vibe with the Troy and Annie interaction in this episode where they’re familiars without any will-they-won’t-they.
- The forbidden name has been spoken! The cast reminisces on Harmon coming to set to guide the end of Mixology.
- Bobrow had the idea to “rabbit-season-duck-season” Jeff into admitting stuff about his father. Ganz describes Britta as a great therapist who just goes about things in weird and aggressive ways.
- While shooting the behind-the-scenes of how Pierce operated the haunted house, Chevy had zero idea what was going on. Naturally.
- Bringing back Gilbert was considered a crucial point in pushing Jeff into getting in touch with his father.
- When people ask Joel what Community is about, he says it’s about a community college where they find a German submarine, where all the controls are in German, just to see how long they’ll buy it for.
- An “open-water” episode was pitched, where Troy and Abed are taking a fitness test where they have to tread water for 20 minutes. The whole episode would have been been Troy and Abed treading water in the pool and talking.
- Gillian apparently has a very strange interpretation of “flirty” as a stage direction, delivering her Inspector Spacetime line at the table read in a high-pitched "sleazy" voice.

ALTERNATIVE HISTORY OF THE GERMAN INVASION COMMENTARY HIGHLIGHTS

Participants - Maggie Bandur, Steve Basilone, Hunter Covington, Adam F. Goldberg, Gene Hong, Tim Saccardo, Ben Wexler

- There was apparently a huge debate in the writers’ room about the lyrics to the theme song. I guess they didn’t wanna Google it.
- The guy playing Chang’s doctor went to grad school with Joel and had Moses Port as his camp counselor. Small world.
- The writers go on a long tangent about these sticky-tomato-stress-ball things that Paramount sent them. They threw them up at the ceiling and they stuck there for a good chunk of the season.
- A B-story about Troy and Abed selling sandwiches was apparently cut after the table read.
- They phone in everyone’s favorite writer, Gene Hong! Because calling people during commentary has had such a good track record.
- They call Pierce’s electrocution a “good bit”. Oof.
- Dart guns were big in the writer’s room. They’ve really avoided talking about the actual episode so far.
- Elaboration on the cut B-story – Troy and Abed work at Shirley’s Sandwiches and become better and doing sandwich things than Shirley.
- Cut line from the Germans - “…an enormous German chocolate cake. Or as we call it, cake.”
- Apparently, there were a lot of conflicting opinions in the writers’ room throughout the entire season.
- The 4-pronged trident, or “quadr-dent” was a shortened replacement for a much longer bit.
- The writers like to play The Movie Game, where someone names a movie and someone raises their hand if they haven’t seen it. The goal is to get through as many movies as possible without anyone raising their hand.

Bah. Another boring one. Thankfully this is the last one without any cast members.

ADVANCED DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING COMMENTARY HIGHLIGHTS

Participants: Joel McHale, David Guarascio, Steve Basilone, Tim Saccardo

- At one point in the writing process, the writers WERE actually going to use Britta’s theory – that Chang was originally Kevin, went crazy and became Chang, then hit his head and became Kevin again. I’m ultimately glad they didn’t do such an irreversible retcon.
- Joel theorizes they’ll get big ratings if they’re allowed to actually swear. Advertised on NBC: “This week on Community… someone says fuck.”
- They subtly allude to Chevy’s outburst on this episode without calling attention to it. “There’s Chevy… isolated in his shot…”
- There’s a chunk of blank space after the Chevy comment. I wonder if they discussed it more in-detail and Sony decided to censor it.
- They joke about how Jeff’s comments about the ridiculousness of Changnesia were adapted from Joel’s real-life comments about that plotline. Hard to tell how much they’re joking, if at all.
- Chang’s repetition scene was tough, due to the different takes they had for the Shirley/Jeff conversation. They basically had Ken do the scene a ton of times with a ton of different inflections.
- Dancing around the issue during Chevy’s hand puppet bit. “This scene is… remarkable.” A subsequent vague comment: “For you folks out there… this is when it all went down.”
- Troy and Annie’s little dance after they break the trout farmer was improvised, and they feared it’d get cut. The director demanded it stayed in the final cut.
- Upon the start of Pierce’s puppet routine at the presentation “This is the scene of the crime, everybody. This is where it all happened.”
- “I believe Chevy came to me and complained that the line was too subtly racist, so we had to change it and make it more racist.”
- Ken was super excited to have Chang’s wife return. “It just grounds my character”, he said.
- There was a version of the script where Jeff made out with the charred mannequin leg to try and provoke Chang.
- Another early draft had this episode as a telethon. Some still call it the Changathon.
- No significant comments on the tag, surprisingly. Just that they had a whole take of Chang walking the whole hallway and still laughing while turning the corner.

INTRO TO FELT SURROGACY COMMENTARY HIGHLIGHTS

Participants - Yvette Nicole Brown, David Guarascio, Gene Hong, Andy Bobrow

- This commentary was recorded in May, apparently on the day they expected to find out about the season 5 renewal.
- “The things that happened to these puppets in between takes… people still need to be repenting.”
- A writer named Pat (whose last name I couldn’t make out) planted the seed for the episode during the writing of History 101, thinking that that’s what the Greendale Babies bit was gonna be. Yvette points out that she’s been begging for puppets since season 1.
- The puppeteers were given their first opportunity to study the actors’ movements at the table read. They had their mannerisms down pretty quickly.
- Not sure if this was common knowledge, but the first song “Adventure” was co-written by Sarah Bareilles and Gene Hong. Ludwig put the finishing touches on all the songs.
- Everyone agrees that the Pierce puppet is closest to Chevy in appearance, calling it “Cuddly Chevy”. There’s a long period of silence after that, making me wonder if there was talk of Chevy’s departure that Sony cut out.
- Jason Alexander was motivational towards the cast about the show’s weak ratings, reminding them that ever Seinfeld took 3 or 4 years to take root. Apparently they have a handshake deal for Alexander to direct in season 5.
- Second song – “Here in the Woods”, melody written by Alex Greenwald, formerly the lead singer of Phantom Planet
- “Just so there’s no confusion, they’re tripping their balls off right now.”
- Early stages of breaking the story – the original awkward situation in the woods placeholder was that Pierce masturbated in front of everyone. This actually stayed in the script for a few days. Bobrow was a strong proponent of that version of the story.
- Alison and Yvette were very diligent about always having their hand puppets properly framed and facing the screen. Gillian didn’t give a shit and just did whatever with the puppet.
- Apparently, this season, the actors had much more control over the physical appearance of their characters, in the wardrobe and makeup areas
- Adam Levine wrote the melody to the third song, as I think we all know.
- The DVD version has the Daybreak tag restored to this episode. Apparently they filmed Michael Haggis (who wrote the song) actually joining in with his guitar.
- This isn’t on the commentary, but there’s a deleted scene where Pierce is still high on berries and hanging out with Jason Alexander, who gets increasingly annoyed with him. Alexander ends up giving Pierce the keys to his jeep so that he can drive home.

BASIC HUMAN ANATOMY COMMENTARY HIGHLIGHTS

Participants - Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Yvette Nicole Brown, Jim Rash, Beth McCarthy-Miller

- Beth McCarthy-Miller is the only director to have ever directed Community, 30 Rock, and Nirvana
- Gillian is wearing the same vest while recording as Britta was wearing at the beginning of the episode. Trivia!
- The episode’s original inception was to build off of the idea of Troy breaking up with Britta, with the body-switching motif coming in second.
- Donald and Danny recorded each others’ lines in-character and sent them to each other, so that the other could better imitate the characters’ speech patterns.
- Joel did indeed lose his voice over the course of filming the episode. He wasn’t otherwise sick, he just lost his voice for no reason.
- Early in breaking the story, everybody was switching with everybody. Jeff would act like the Dean, and Annie and Shirley would just do it on purpose so as to not feel left out.
- The Senor Kevin’s Manager’s hair was real back in VSA, but they had to use a wig this time. The cast goes off on a long tangent about his hair.
- They had to do a billion takes of Joel throwing the DVD. Someone kept getting hit.
- Jim’s pushups also get much discussion. It was originally regular pushups, but Jim decided to go for it and put his feet on the table. The only way to channel the Jeff Winger forehead vein.
- Abed (acting as Troy) and Britta are both in the process of figuring out why they’re both there during their dinner. Abed basically has to figure out why Troy set everything up as he goes, and his actions as Troy are played as Abed figures out Troy’s motivation.
- Gillian casually compares the Lost and Found room to one of her old apartments in New York. Shades of Britta.
- Gillian couldn’t figure out exactly why Troy and Britta didn’t work. Everyone else postulates that relationships just plain don’t work out on sitcoms.
- Joel’s voice was completely gone by the “Jeffrey inside of me” scene. They had to redub it later.

ADVANCED INTRODUCTION TO FINALITY HIGHLIGHTS

Participants - Joel McHale, Alison Brie, Megan Ganz, and Tristram Shapeero

- Common knowledge, but this episode was filmed out of order, technically making this Joe Lo Truglio’s first appearance on the show.
- The “spring/fall semester” gag was obviously done to mask the complete switch-uppery of the show’s airing schedule. There was originally a longer bit where Pierce further expresses his confusion about how it’s only been one semester.
- The cold open joke where they all ditch Pierce was written before Chevy was to leave the show, only for it to take on a much more sinister connotation once that news broke.
- Cut joke – the Dean had to psych himself up to sign Jeff’s diploma, telling himself “you are the dean of one of the city’s top lower-level institutional buildings. Act like it.”
- Ganz thought they were going to do a producer’s cut of the episode for the DVD. No dice.
- Tristram found a copy of The Descendants in the Dean’s desk. They joke that Jim keeps it in his desk as a reminder of his ticket out of there.
- They batted around a similar idea for the end of season 3, where everyone’s dark timeline doppelgangers would burst through and try to kill their counterparts.
- The cast had a lot of fun playing with Joel’s fake arm. Yes, they used it as a penis.
- Cut Leonard joke with Annie trying on the “wedding” veil: “If you build it, he will come.” “Shut up Leonard, I know you have a soft spot for me.” “You look like you should be tattoed on a sailor.” Ganz wanted a reveal that Leonard at least liked one of them.
- It took them more than a week to shoot this episode, shooting pickups during the filming of Origins and Felt.
- The main crucial difference between the timelines as stated by Ganz is that they couldn’t stop Chang from taking over in the dark timeline.
- Ganz loves turning Troy’s emotions on a dime, since Donald’s so good at it. Troy’s “My dreams…” after the Troyjan Horse idea is shot down was ad-libbed.
- Though he never saw the script, Ganz texted McKenna a lot while writing this episode. Evil Abed having a die around his neck was McKenna’s idea. They apparently ALMOST didn’t shoot the original timeline tag for RCT.
- Alison was in a Lifetime movie called The Deadliest Lesson. Alison drew heavily from her experiences there when playing Evil Annie.
- Ganz thinks that people will think that the episode’s being done JUST to reference the darkest timeline. Ganz explains that the impetus for the finale was all about Jeff’s struggles with jumping back into his old life after graduating, and they used this as a way to make that struggle more action-y than talk-y. Ganz wanted the whole point to be about the study group banding together to defeat a common enemy, to show that they are friends.
- The last thing Chevy ever shot for the show was Evil Pierce shooting himself. Seems fitting.
- Ganz starts talking about bringing Abed full circle from something in History 101, but she gets cut off.
- When they were switching wardrobe and filming the scenes twice as their doppelgangers, Donald took the advantage to often make it look like he was humping himself onscreen.
- “How many peoples’ job descriptions do you think involve filling vending machines with meat?”
- Ganz tells a story about trying to explain the show to a first-time lighting tech during the filming of FCD. The simple description of the show about a group of friends at a community college really clashed with the outrageous set dressing for Chang’s birthday party.
- Everyone was crying during Jeff’s graduation scene. Awww.
- They cut a bunch of stuff out of Pierce’s final scene. Pierce presents all his graduation paperwork, and the Dean dismisses him saying that he’ll just email him his diploma later. One final burn on Pierce.
- Ganz describes the Chewbacca joke as “stolen from some people from the 3rd season”. They were also going to film some scenes for the tag with two Changs, and something with an alternate Jeff and Annie.

And that's all, folks.