The sitcom Community ran for five seasons on NBC, with the sixth airing on the short-lived streaming service, Yahoo! Screen. Throughout its six seasons, the show featured several episodes that did not follow the traditional sitcom format, and these episodes often opened with a different title sequence to the usual one.
The episodes, 18 in total, allow Community to stand out amongst all other modern sitcoms, many of which rarely alter their opening credits to reflect the content of each specific episode. Among these alternate titles are 10 which match their respective episodes perfectly, and cement Community as one of the most inventive sitcoms of all time.
"Geothermal Escapism" was the final episode to feature integral study group member Troy Barnes, who left Community too soon. The episode saw Abed prompting a campus-wide game of "Hot Lava," where players were prohibited from stepping on the ground to win a comic book worth $50,000.
This opening credits sequence is one of the shortest in Community, featuring the text "Community: Lava World" over a lava-based background, as appropriately ominous music plays. Some fans argue that this was a missed opportunity because it was quite short compared to other opening credits. However, the sequence is possibly as short as it is to make time for every impactful moment in the plot-heavy episode.
In the third paintball-themed episode of Community, and the second of a two-part paintball war between Greendale and City College, the study group deal with the war whilst also reeling from the departure of Pierce Hawthorne. The episode features an unmistakable Star Wars homage, something that is specifically mentioned by the always-meta Abed Nadir.
The opening credits for this episode appropriately feature the title of the series and the episode in the iconic Star Wars font. It also features a brief description of where the characters are following from the previous episode which, in typical hilarious Community fashion, ends by saying "let's not draw this out," possibly poking fun at the sometimes overly long Star Wars opening crawls.
One of the most noticeable and well-publicized departures in the show was creator Dan Harmon who was fired pre-season 4, which saw one season being run by entirely new writers. While some fans hate season 4 of Community, feeling that the show was changed too much by the behind-the-scenes drama, it still delivered an episode with a unique opening credit sequence.
The first episode of season 4, "History 101," follows Abed as he struggles with the changes in the group as they begin their senior year. To cope, he desperately tries to imagine their situation as a sitcom. His version of the show has its own title sequence, that showcases jokes and situations from the previous three seasons. Ironically, this is one of the major flaws of both the sequence and the season as a whole according to some fans, as it reuses old jokes and fails to introduce inventive new ones.
The fifth season of Community is perhaps the most impressive of all six as it had to deal with the departure of two members of the study group - Troy Barnes and Pierce Hawthorne. Despite this, it still maintained its trademark humor. It continued its incorporation of themed episodes, with a homage to the classic TV series, G.I. Joe.
While technically one of the worst episodes of Community Season 5, featuring in the lower-rated half of the season, it's still beloved by fans. However, the episode and its opening credits were perhaps too specific to one property to be enjoyable for all viewers. Nevertheless, its opening credits poke fun at the premise of G.I. Joe in typical Community fashion, which is difficult to not enjoy.
One of the most iconic running gags in Community is the premise of "six seasons and a movie." The show did achieve half of its goal when the sixth season was picked up by streaming service, Yahoo! Screen. While the season suffered from the departure of yet another original study group member, Shirley Bennett, it did deliver another fan-favorite paintball episode.
The fifth and final paintball ep, "Modern Espionage," followed the study group-turned-committee to save Greendale enrolled in a high-stakes paintball war against the custodial staff, orchestrated by City College. The opening credits see a reimagining of the usual titles to replicate that of an action movie, with each actor's name on the screen. Unfortunately, fans will forever ponder how much better this episode, and the opening titles, could have been with the original cast intact.
In one of Community's best homages to a movie, "Basic Intergluteal Numismatics" follows a plot similar to that of David Fincher's Zodiac, with subtle references to other movies of the slasher and thriller genres. The episode sees Greendale terrorized by the "Ass Crack Bandit," as the group attempt to uncover their identity.
Despite being one of the funniest ever episodes of Community, with its ridiculous premise and excellent comedic performances from the entire cast, the episode is also one of the series' darkest, both visually and thematically as it culminates in the reveal of Pierce's death. The gloomy opening titles set the mood of the episode, allowing for the crucial emotional weight that the moment demands.
Community's third season featured a wide array of themed episodes, each with its own individual opening credits. One of the best of season 3's themed episodes is "Basic Lupine Urology," a homage to Law & Order. The episode, written by one of the series' best writers, Megan Ganz, follows the group as they try to determine the culprit of their sabotaged Biology project-yam.
Seeing the study group as detectives is one of the best moments in season 3 of Community, and the episode's opening credits are startlingly similar to that of Law & Order. The sequence features still images of each character with the actor's names layered on top, with a reimagined version of The 88's "At Least It Was Here" played over it. It is even complete with a dramatic shot of the main cast at the end. The accurate homage to a classic police procedural makes the opening credits of "Basic Lupine Urology" one of the best in the series.
Of all the themed episodes, "Digital Estate Planning" is one of the most innovative. A large portion of the episode follows the study group as video game characters, each with their own likeness transported into the game. The episode sees the group attempting to beat the game to help Pierce get his inheritance.
The opening credits show each character replicated as they 8-bit versions of them and the theme song is reimagined to sound like a typical arcade game that will make viewers instantly nostalgic. Fun and colorful, the nostalgia factor alone is enough to make the opening credits one of the best variants in the series, but it also reflects the episode perfectly and serves to highlight how inventive Community is.
The second paintball episode in season 2 of Community ramps up the stakes of the first paintball-themed episode. Being part of a two-part saga, "A Fistful Of Paintballs" features elements akin to a Western. As Abed perfectly describes in the final paintball episode, "the campus erupts into a flawless, post-modern homage to action-adventure mythology."
The opening credits are a homage to the Western genre, full of shadowed, animated figures of the main characters. The theme song also incorporates whistles and gunshots that are characteristic of the genre. As one of the first alternate opening credits in the series, it helps to cement Community as a series that perfectly masters the homage.
Arguably the most visually impressive and innovative episode in the entire series is "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas." In this Christmas episode, Abed is suffering an internal familial-based crisis, one that leads him to see the world as a stop-motion animation.
The credits feature Abed as a stop-motion figure, dancing outside the Greendale campus while he sings his own version of the theme song with updated Christmas-themed lyrics. As he jumps across several cars, he is quickly shot down with a taser by campus security, in hilarious Community-fashion. The episode is significant in Community lore as it demonstrates the love the creators have for the show as they devoted their time to developing a full-length stop-motion animated episode complete with a highly detailed title sequence.
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