Surfing Sitcoms: Community – “Paradigms of Human Memory”

Hey, remember that time we had spoilers for Community? Well, feast your ear tongues on these memory pops!

Once upon a time, TV series sometimes ran out of money near the end of a season, and one way they could squeeze out an extra episode for cheap was to do what was called a “clip show”. These used some after-thought of a framing story as an excuse to reuse footage from previous episodes. At their most lazy, they often consisted of the characters sitting around and saying some variation of “Remember that time when…” Cut to a scene from last year.

Some pretty decent series have fallen prey to the clip show. The original Stargate pulled this trick more than once, for example. However, none have done a clip show quite like “Paradigms of Human Memory”. For one thing, I’m fairly certain this episode did nothing to save Community money, and in fact probably cost more than the average episode given the sheer number of locations used. But the most important difference, of course, is that this is a clip show consisting entirely of original footage.

Also this apparently happened at some point...

Many TV shows like to pretend that they’re showing us all the interesting bits and cutting out everything that’s boring, but Community uses this episode to flaunt all sorts of awesome stories we’ll never get to see in full.

There’s the time that racist cowboy shot at them in an Old West village. Or the time the glee club died in a bus crash and they had to fill in for them (Best ten second Glee parody of all time). Or the time they all went camping and Britta insisted that “s’mores” is a contraction of “some mores”. Or the time the Dean built a robot that then went berserk and Jeff had to save Annie. Or the time Pierce injected himself with four flu shots and climbed on top of the bookcase, shouting “I’LL BE A LIVING GOD!” Or… or… or…

Community Creator Dan Harmon proclaimed on my Twitter feed today that this may in fact be his favorite episode of the series thus far. What holds it back for me from quite the same level as my all-time favorites (“Modern Warfare”, “Cooperative Calligraphy”) is that the story is a little beside the point. Yes, if you’re deeply invested in the Jeff/Britta/Annie triangle, there was a lot to chew on here, including the revelation that Jeff and Britta have been secretly boning off-screen all season. But there was never any danger of the group breaking up (interestingly, you got the sense that not even the characters really took this threat seriously). The point of “Paradigms of Human Memory” is very, very simple: It may deliver more laughs per minute than any other episode of TV this year. It is sight gag piled on sight gag, jokes within jokes within jokes as if this were some sort of comedy version of Inception. And I for one laughed my butt off.
Quotes:

“I know these vents like the back of my Chang.”

“Is that a new stereotype?”

“That dude was hardcore racist. Like 1800s Disney style.”

“We got a cool new bus driver…”

“A leprechaun took our clothes!”

“Impressive, Mr. Winger. Someone’s going to regionals.”

“There’s rioting in Tunisia.” “But The Cape is premiering…” “Humanity is premiering, you jags!”

“Jeff and Britta, you are free to go because you didn’t step forward and are therefore innocent.”

On The Cape: “That show will last three episodes!” “Six seasons and a movie!”

“I don’t know if it’s because you’re a racist or because I intimidate you sexually. It’s one of those two things.”

“Abed, stop being meta. Why do you always have to take what happens to us and shove it up its own ass?”

“It’s a locomotive that runs on… US.”

“Like the Traveling Wilburys.” “Yes, Troy. We’re the Traveling Wilburys… of pain.”

About Dan

Dan Joslyn grew up in Ohio but now lives in Las Vegas, NV with his lovely ginger girlfriend, Tiarra, where he works as an office monkey. He enjoys reviewing movies and television for the site, and over-analyzing such things. He may be the Chosen One… but he probably isn’t.

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