Favourite Christmas Special- Part 2

Welcome back! This is a part two so please read the first post if you haven't! If you have, read on!

So Community.... exists. I love this show, and I've wanted to talk about in some way for a very long time. I've had so many ideas for posts about this show, but honestly, how can you talk about it as a whole? This show is so wildly varied in terms of episode plots and structures, that it's covered everything.

The huge amount of variety is one of the main reasons this shown is one of my favourites. And naturally, it's had its fair share of Christmas episodes. And of the four of them, three of them are some of my favourite episodes of the show. Comparitive Religion is awesome, Regional Holiday Music is fantastic, and Intro to Knots is... not great, but is still one of the best episodes of the fourth season, which isn't saying much, but it's still pretty good.

But it's in the golden run that is the show's second season that you'll find the best Christmas episode, Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas. Abed is my favourite character in the show. His episodes are subversive and meta, but often have huge amounts of heart at the same time. Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas is both. The episode is stop motion animated. And there's actually a reason why. And that's why I recommend stopping reading this and watching this episode if you haven't. I will be spoiling this episode. I can't explain why this episode is great without spoiling it. If you haven't seen it, do it and come back. It's definitely worth your time.

So if you're still reading, you either have seen it or don't care about spoilers, so let's keep going!

In this episode, Abed wakes up one December day to find that everything is in stop motion. Or at least it is for him. Nobody else can see that the world is animated, and it's all in Abed's head. So the study group and Duncan band together to give Abed a therapy session and figure out why he's seeing this.

First of all, the animation is absolutely glorious. It's beautifully constructed , and each of the models actually look like the characters they're based on. Clay Chevy Chase in particular is pretty spot on. The design of "Planet Abed" is great too, and full of inventive imagery and fantastic designs.

The songs are great too. Community has a surprising amount of musical numbers, and all of these are pretty great. Brittabot, That's What Christmas is For and the opening theme in particular are charming, funny, and fitting of the genre that this episode is parodying. But all of them have a place within the story, and all of them are fairly funny in their own right too.

The real joy here though is how the story tells it's message. Abed's relationship with his mother really fuels the conflict, and seeing the study group rally together to comfort him is really sweet. For all the jokes they tell about Abed and his festive hallucinations, they do manage to bring it back and use it to generate some serious feels. The final musical number is perfect, not just because it's an absolute earworm and packed with funny moments, but because it brings everything full circle. Seeing the study group push their beliefs and values aside and stand up for Abed is really sweet.

Each character is fantastically represented too. Shirley is entitled and judgemental, Jeff is cynical and doesn't take the situation seriously at all, Britta always turns everything into a therapy session, Annie just wants to be supportive of Abed and help him work through his problems, Troy stands by Abed no matter what and takes it 100% seriously and Pierce just came for the cookies. John Oliver as Duncan is perfect too. He's sly, petty and is blatantly exploiting Abed and his problems. Everyone is great, and their role in the story fits with their personality perfectly.

And in the end, despite their differences, their friendship with Abed unites them. And that may sound overly sweet or obvious, but it's done in such a way that it seriously works. Once we find out that Abed is seeing this due to his mother's absence, the study group coming together to support Abed becomes something special. This is one of the big indications that these characters are becoming a family. It's heartwarming, but never unnecessarily sentimental. It's message is one that's undoubtedly festive, to stand by and support those you love.

This has to be one of my all time favourite Christmas episodes. In any show. Unique visual style and catchy soundtrack combines with strong heartwarming messages and ideas and a typically hilarious script makes Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas an absolute gem. Community is a show with many great Christmas episodes, but this episode has to be the best because I feel like it executes it's idea better than any other. It's also one of the strongest Abed-centric episodes. It really develops his character and showcases how he relates to each member of the study group. As far as this show goes, Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas is near perfect. A festive favourite for sure.

Favourite Christmas Special- Part 1

Merry Christmas! Considering last year I celebrated my absolute favourite time of year by talking about Aliens... for some reason. This year I'm going to celebrate the holidays by talking about the Christmas episodes of two of my all time favourite shows. Nicecapades from Bob's Burgers and Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas from Community. Both of these shows have multiple Christmas episodes, most of which are awesome too, but these two in particular are definitely ones I'll try to catch every year if I can. For me, these two are the gold standard of Christmas episodes. They're so good in fact, that I'm splitting this post into two. One now and one later. Right now I'm going to tackle Nicecapades from Bob's Burgers!

Bob's Burgers is a show that I've been meaning to tackle since I started this blog. It's easily one of my favourites ever, what with it's incredible sense of humour, beyond lovable characters and huge amounts of quirky heart. The show can do heartwarming without ever being overly sweet, and I think that's one of the reasons it's mastered the Christmas special: it knows exactly how much heart to put into it's episodes, and more importantly how to put it in.

Any of the Christmas episodes showcase this very well. God Rest Ye Merry Gentle Mannequins is delightfully odd, if slightly lacking in the heart that makes a good Christmas special, Christmas in the Car is a wonderful Duel parody with an incredibly funny subplot, Father of the Bob runs Nicecapades close as the series best holiday episode, and The Last Gingerbread House on the Left is a typically odd concept done as well as you'd expect from a show where a rent protest turns into a water balloon fight.

But it's in the show's sixth season, which I found slightly disappointing, that you'll find the shows absolute best Christmas episode. Bob's Burgers has no shortage of episodes about Louise and how morally questionable some of her antics are, and this is episode is the best showcase of that. I mean the whole naughty-nice thing makes Christmas the ideal setting for an episode about Louise's mischief as it is, and it's clear from the start that that's the direction they're going with this episode, but as I said, Christmas provides the perfect catalyst for Louise to question her morals. I'll get into that later though.

The episode basically begins with Tina, Gene and Louise kicking an old man out of a massage chair. He turns out to be Santa...ish. He's the Santa in the shopping centre. He threatens the kids by saying that he'll report them to the real Santa (Santa Santa as Louise puts it), and so it's up to the kids to prove that they're good kids. And because this is Bob's Burgers, they put on an ice show. Nicecapades! That's the basic plot, but it's the way that everything unfolds that really works.

See, this episode focuses mainly on Louise, who happens to be my favourite character. What I love about Louise is that yes, she's always up to something and isn't afraid to hurt other people to get what she wants, but we're always reminded that she's a legitimately good kid. That's something that's hard to do by the way, justify the actions of a character that causes huge amounts of trouble. But Bob's Burgers does it well by always having Louise realise how her actions have affected those around her. These episodes appeal to me so much because each one reminds me why Louise is my favourite character to begin with. She's not one dimensional, and she's not a bad person. She often forgets to consider the people around her, but she still has a good heart underneath it all.

Nicecapades has Louise being the one who comes up with most of the ideas of the Nicecapades, and this leads to some really great moments. She basically lies about all of the good deeds she did over the year, and encourages her siblings to do the same. This leads to the performance of Nicecapades, where Louise realises that she's not a good person, because a good person wouldn't have to create an ice show that showcases every good thing they did, and that roping Gene and Tina into her scheme wasn't the best idea either, because they're legitimately good kids. I love this moment so freaking much. It's one of Louise's best character moments, and it's improved by what happens immediately after.

The Belchers assure Louise that she is a good person, and it showcases how well the show balances heart and humour. The Santa then tells Louise that she cares more about what she thinks of herself more than what Santa thinks of her. I love this moment, because it perfectly sums up Louise's arc in this episode. Louise is such a fantastic schemer, so it's believable that she'd doubt herself in this way. But in her time of insecurity, her family is there for her, assuring her that she is indeed a good person. That the Santa also comforts Louise is just the cherry on top.

It's an awesome special because it perfectly captures what Christmas is: a time for love and acceptance. Add that in with the show being sweet but never sentimental, as well as some fantastically funny jokes, and you've got the best Christmas episode from a show that has pretty much mastered them. This episode is a perfect highlight of what Christmas is, and especially what it is in Louise's eyes. Her combination of naivety and savviness is odd,  but it's what allows this episode to be sentimental, but not sickeningly sweet. It's a masterpiece, and one of Bob's best, any day.

Tune in next time to receive a course on how to make a stop motion animated existential crisis. Where can you find this course? Why Greendale of course! We're tackling Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas next!