Fair enough. But you've got to admit: that combination Sadie Hawkins/Sophie B. Hawkins dance sure looks like it must have been a good time.
This was indeed the episode that I worked on. I played one of the Greendale students who attended the double dance. Well, technically I attended the sock hop, and only moved over to the 90s party when Sophie showed up to save the evening and unite the party guests, eventually ending up as her biggest fan.
If you rewatch the episode, I'm the guy in the leather jacket who's as skinny as Abed, as pale as Annie, and with a forehead that's bigger than Jeff's. I also apparently learned to dance from whoever instructed Britta and Troy. This is me up front with the collegiate smarmy facial hair.
I don't know how clear it came across the way the cafeteria was split down the middle with a yellow boundary, but they show me toeing the line towards Chang's DJ corner in the shot where they establish the space.
You can see me loitering behind the Dean when he has his dark little speech about Greendale students being crushed and losing hope in life being worth living.
And of course, I got ridiculous on the dance floor, behind Abed's quirky manicpixiedreamgirl date. They had us match to a temporary music track that played before each take and be as enthusiastic as possible, but of course they swapped out the music for a completely different song on the final mix that results in whatever discordant nonsense I'm up to in the aired episode.
You can also spot me passing through at various points whenever they needed to keep the frame active with some background crosses. We had a bit with a flask where I was repeatededly spiking the punch and giving people drinks that Joel liked, but I don't know if any of those moments made it into the final edit.
Like I said before, we had tremendous fun shooting the episode. I think we all expected the story to have.a bigger scope; it's tough to get a sense of the arc of the plot when you're only involved in certain scenes and everything's shot out of order over the days you're working. Scheduling was a little hectic with Sophie only being available on one shooting day and the fact that Ken Jeong (Chang/Kevin) was simultaneously in the middle of shooting The Hangover 3.
There's some things that were shot that didn't make it to air, I remember there being more with Donald, including this complicated sequence of him pushing through the "concert" crowd to find and talk to someone. I think there were longer exchanges involving Annie; I remember Allison going off on this improvised rap about British accents in between takes for some scene by the snack tables.
I think one of the reasons I was feeling so hopeful about this season was that you could see the energy and love and talent on display everywhere on set, from the gifted crew, the director and ADs, and the almost mythical charisma and chemistry of the cast. The heart and soul of the show is in the misfit characters and their collective weird energy, and that still exists in the performers who have come to embody their essence. It's just, we've seen what they do when working with scripts that let them fully explore and inhabit and play with that essence for the first few years, and we can tell it's not being showcased or utilized the same way now. That essential Community "thing" is palpable in the room, the way Joel teases Allison or the way Yvette delights in defying expectations by running against the immediate response to her sugary sweet demeanor. Heck, I saw Jim Rash and Danny Pudi get into an interpretive dance battle while we were waiting for a lighting setup to be adjusted. It was incredible.
I ran into Joel McHale at the bank a few weeks later and thanked him for making Community and said how much the show meant to me and other people who are huge fans. He said he's never been a part of something that was so enthusiastically and earnestly loved,and that we were the people that deserve thanks. Whatever they make on the show, they make for us.
Maybe it's sentimental of me, but I feel a bit sad to see how unforgiving many of those same fans seem to be now that this latest bit is underway. This season isn't the show it was, but it's not so bad that it merits scorn or disdain. It's really hard to make a show as amazing as Community, which I think the new season, with all its behind the scenes upheavals, new runners, new network support, but many of the same writers, the same crew, the same cast, is proving. I'm glad they still gave it their all, even if it can't measure up to what it once was.
"Dan Harmon was able to build this in a cave! With a box of SCRAPS!"
"Well, I'm sorry. I'm not Dan Harmon."
Falling short of my hopes? Absolutely, no question.
Being phoned in? No way. Not on that campus.
