Community

[Soapy]

 

[Cmill216]

I stand corrected.

I thought the product placement was a joke. Like the ones they did for Snapple on 30 Rock.

I may be in the minority, but I thought Always Sunny's Dave & Busters episode absolutely nailed it by building the entire episode around the product naturally. To reference Dave & Busters in some Fourth Wall manner would've been the safe thing to do. Instead, Mac and Dennis are inspired to re-brand their bar by replicating the Dave & Busters business model, complete with a series of conversations in Dave & Busters about how effective it's been given the economy.

And as ridiculous as that is, the episode makes perfect sense from a character standpoint. The product placement was both blatant, yet subtly satirized.

 

[Prison Mike]

I want a soap opera to actually pimp out some soap during an episode.

 

[Homer J. Fong]

Dan Harmon was interviewed on today's episode of the "WTF with Marc Maron" podcast. Always a great podcast, and it's a terrific episode, so it's well worth listening to.

 

[Master Chief]

I may be in the minority, but I thought Always Sunny's Dave & Busters episode absolutely nailed it by building the entire episode around the product naturally. To reference Dave & Busters in some Fourth Wall manner would've been the safe thing to do. Instead, Mac and Dennis are inspired to re-brand their bar by replicating the Dave & Busters business model, complete with a series of conversations in Dave & Busters about how effective it's been given the economy.

And as ridiculous as that is, the episode makes perfect sense from a character standpoint. The product placement was both blatant, yet subtly satirized.

It would have been better without all the Coors and D&B commercials in between though hahaha but it's still a great episode.

 

[Mr.Webs]

Haha, I thought that made it that much better. After an almost seven minute scene inside Dave & Busters discussing how great is, they cut to, "It's Always Sunny brought to you by Dave & Busters!"

 

[Soapy]

What is the purpose of product placement exactly anyway? I mean, it's not enough that show is interrupted by commercial breaks, but they have to turn the show itself into a commercial at times to?

I'm not incensed by it or anything, I really just don't understand.



Also: Arrested Development Burger King scene. Surprised no one mentioned that yet.

 

[Anubis]

Money. To get paid a s**t load of money.

Maybe if more of those awesome shows that few people actually watch did that they might not get canceled so soon.

 

[SouLeSS]

What is the purpose of product placement exactly anyway? I mean, it's not enough that show is interrupted by commercial breaks, but they have to turn the show itself into a commercial at times to?

I'm not incensed by it or anything, I really just don't understand.



Also: Arrested Development Burger King scene. Surprised no one mentioned that yet.

Mostly because in todays day and age people skip through the commercials with a DVR, or don't have to deal with them via hulu/torrenting, and what not.

 

[WillardNation]

Haha, I thought that made it that much better. After an almost seven minute scene inside Dave & Busters discussing how great is, they cut to, "It's Always Sunny brought to you by Dave & Busters!"

I remember Glenn Howerton saying on his twitter that they had no idea FX was going to run the commercials with and were actually upset they did because it kinda ruined the whole thing.

That being said I also remember him saying something along the lines of the people complaining about them selling out are dumb. He said (and I'm paraphrasing), "That was the whole point all along. I'm not going to apologize for making more money for doing what I love."

 

[antsman41]

I just rewatched all of season 2 today;

It's fun to see in the "flashback" episode Jeff having an RC car on the table since the guys had a thing for them previous to the "trampoline" episode.

I love Dan and the team, they put so much into this show. So funny and detailed in every aspect...

 

[Lencho01]

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118037818/

Posted: Tue., Jun. 7, 2011, 4:00am PT
'Community' student Abed analyzes the Emmys

Pop culture guru ABBA-plectic about Emmys

By Abed Nadir

Hi, I'm Abed Nadir, a film major at Greendale Community College. The editors of this paper have asked me to share my 2011 Best Comedy Emmy pick, I'm assuming as part of some diversity program.

No surprises among the favorites this year, probably because surprising people isn't a favorite's function. I'm told that "The Big C," "Parks and Recreation," "Modern Family," "The Office," "30 Rock" and "Big Bang Theory" are what everyone's talking about, and "everyone" must include whoever gives Emmys.

My pick? Well, I haven't seen these shows, but I do have a system. First, eliminate the longest-running and highest-rated shows. The Emmys are about a revolution of sophistication. If "The Office" is revolutionary, why isn't it canceled? If "Big Bang Theory" is sophisticated, why is everyone watching it? They're out.

I sort the last four into two groups: a) shows that have won an Emmy, so it seems like they'll win again, and b) shows that haven't won yet, so it seems like their turn. Sorting every winner since "I Love Lucy" in 1953:

B A B B A B A B B AA B B AB B A A B B AA A B A A B B A B B A B A B A A B B A A A A B B B B B B A B B A A B

The "ABBA" pattern emerges soon and repeats often, as people's urge to shake up a system always results in systemic shaking. I totally get it: I once missed a week of school by trying not to touch my chin 7,000 times. The stretches of non-ABBA you see are "cable scares," like when we just kept giving Emmys to "Frasier" until "Larry Sanders" went away. Think of TV as Rain Man getting through HBO's smoke alarm by chanting "I like the guy from Cheers."

Since HBO is currently scaring nobody, we have to assume we're one "B" into an ABBA, specifically the second in a classic '61 double-ABBA, with "30 Rock" as "Phil Silvers" and "Modern Family" as "Jack Benny." I probably don't have to explain this.

That means "Modern Family" is out, as everyone assuming it's a shoe-in will now accidentally shoe-in an upset. Also, my friend Shirley says that show is about "thumbing noses at the book of Leviticus." Don't know what that means but sounds boring. "Hogan's Heroes" thumbed their noses at the German army -- where's their nomination?

Also gone: "30 Rock." It's won before, so it wouldn't be the "B" ABBA needs. I know what you're saying. "Abed, what about the 1989-1992 'Cheers'/ 'Murphy Brown' Seizure?" Those were different times, competition-wise. This is a golden age of TV, meaning, there's more stuff to watch than there are people watching. We will not flee back to Tina Fey because there's no Delta Burke trying to eat us.

So it's between "Parks" and "The Big C." My friend Shirley says a magazine said "Parks and Rec" is the "smartest comedy on TV" (yet another insult to a much smarter sitcom with which I am intimately acquainted … starts with a "C," ends with "ougar Town"). And "Parks" is on NBC, safe from the tarnish of ratings. "The Big C," on the other hand, has the advantage of only having to be mildly humorous to be considered hysterically funny. Laugh once at cancer, you're laughing A LOT.

That's when simple logic enters the picture: We'll give it to "The Big C" this year, because we know it's their only chance to get it. By next year, Laura Linney's character will either have died, or the "Fonz" of her diagnosis will have "grown the beard" of remission.

"The Big C"'s victory will be an upset, but not an outrage. My friend Shirley says Showtime magazine truly believes it's an Emmy-worthy comedy, and if it's not, why would they spend so much money saying so?

The outrage will be in 2012, when "Parks" lines up for its turn, only to watch the Emmy go to "Modern Family." To misquote my Dad: The will of ABBA will not be denied.

Excelsior!

 

[Cmill216]

Parks, Abed. It's all about Parks.

 

[Maximus One]

That was BRILLIANT!!! HAHAHA! Abed just GETS IT!

 

[Maximus One]

I'm a little freaked out now though. I think that somehow Dan Harmon and Danny Pudi have actually created a real person named Abed. It's like Abed being so meta makes him start to seem like a real person

 

[antsman41]

What if we find out Abed is playing Dani playing Abed.

 

[Anubis]

The universe would implode.

 

[Pink Ranger]

What if we find out Abed is playing Dani playing Abed.

That means it is WE that are actually fictional characters in a TV show. A very boring TV show.

 

[Maximus One]

That means it is WE that are actually fictional characters in a TV show. A very boring TV show.

I'm thinking that's already the case

 

[WillardNation]

Speak for yourselves; my tv show is funny and exciting as ****.

 

[Lencho01]

This was interesting...

http://io9.com/5810498/did-you-hear-about-the-time-nbc-tried-to-kill-communitys-dd-episode

quote of the day

Did you hear about the time NBC tried to kill Community’s D&D episode?

Meredith Woerner — "They [the studio and the network] were so upset about the crime of this episode having been written. The note session as a whole was preceded by a 45-minute period of them walking around the lot whispering to each other. They told me they would come up to my office and meet me privately. When they came up, I had the director and all of the writers in the office with me, because I was terrified. They sat down, and they said, ‘Look, where do we start?' I couldn't believe this was happening. I was like, ‘This is opposite of how you should feel right now. This is a great episode. We're going to get a 1.7 no matter what. We will build our ratings in other ways. The episode is not about credit cards; it's not about Hilary Duff. It's going to get the same numbers. There is a cultural build to a hit show. We have to prove to people that we're capable of good things so they can trust us, so that we can have a relationship. One day we will either be a highly rated show or we'll be canceled. It will not have to do with this moment. This episode is good, the story is good, these characters are good. Anyone who doesn't tune in because the commercial says they're playing Dungeons & Dragons, it's not my fault. It's not on me."

"It was such a depressing note session, because they didn't even have any notes on the story. They just didn't want it to exist. I took a photograph of my eyes driving home that day at 3 p.m. because I was leaving work early. I looked in my rear view mirror, and I was crying. More than crying, I was red-eyes, tears streaming, weeping. And I was weeping out of self-pity and frustration, like a child weeps when he doesn't understand his parents' rules. ‘Why can't I have ice cream when I ate my liver?' I took a photo of it, so I could show it to them between seasons, because as I told my girlfriend when I got home, ‘I think I'm going to have to quit my own show, because I can't operate under these circumstances. I can't be this proud of something that the people paying me to do it are this ashamed of. It will never work. We'll never achieve anything. It'll never connect.'"

- Community executive producer Dan Harmon, explaining to The AV Club how NBC almost killed the mindbendingly awesome episode "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons."

Read the full interview over at the The AV Club.
[Via Marc Bernardin]

 

[Mr.Webs]

Wow, Harmon. That sounds awful.

 

[antsman41]

After reading all of those interviews with Dan Harmon on the episodes, I respect him and the show so much. They literally try so hard to do something amazing every week for us and they have so many people (NBC) telling them it sucks and so forth. This show ****ing rules, and Dan Harmon is working so hard on it.

 

[Two-Face=Badass]

To be fair, I do sympathise with those people whose jobs it is to regulate shows and decide what should and what should not continue. I mean, low ratings is low ratings, and some guys get so much flak for simply doing what their job is.

 

[Anubis]

Yeah, but f**k them.