Community’s ‘Regional Holiday Music’ Reviewed

The start to a collaborative series of reviews about NBC’s Community by Castle Co-Op Writers – Published 04-01-2012

The latest episode from our favourite Biology Study Group from Greendale Community College now takes its Glee-bashing to a new level, dedicating the holiday episode as a musical inspired genre parody in a bid to fulfil its season 3 premiere promise to be more ‘accessible to mainstream audiences’ – a bittersweet farewell literally going out on a high note for its mid-season hiatus.

Community’s one-sided rivalry with Glee has been a long running gag since its first season with the belligerent taunts, rants and hilarious one-liners from Jeff Winger. The constant reflexive Metareferences in Community targeting Glee is out of admiration mixed with a little spite, probably due to Glee’s mainstream success and them being neighbours on the Paramount film lot.

Interestingly the episode itself is a call-back to a plot established in last year’s episode ‘Paradigms of Human Memory.’ Capitalising on the fake flash-back in which the first glee club was killed in a bus crash, this episode focuses on Mr. Rad (SNL’s Taran Killam) and Abed trying to convince the rest of the study group to replace the second glee club that recently suffered a mental break down and were admitted to West Side Hospital (get it?). Through song and dance in a musical holiday extravaganza (Lyrics by Community’s Writing Staff and music by the show’s composer Ludwig Göransson) Abed tries to convert each glee club hater into a member with a little ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ twist.

Even without prior knowledge of the back-story, you can still enjoy the many original holiday-themed musical tributes to a wide variety of Christmas traditions. Troy and Abed’s rap ‘Christmas Infiltration’ (with Donald Glover adopting a role similar to his on-stage rapper alter-ego ‘Childish Gambino’) was a highlight of the episode that was unfortunately eclipsed by my personal favourite music number – Annie singing in a sexy Santa costume ‘Teach me How to Understand Christmas’ – a clip I’ve watched repeatedly albeit for the wrong reasons. With each obsessive viewing, a slew or Metareferences, parodies and actor allusions are constantly being discovered. Perhaps even a parody of her persona as ‘Christmas Idol’ Hailey. It was as if the purpose of this episode was to provide fans with as many Alison Brie GIF’s as possible from one episode.

Not just the brilliant music, but the comedy really hits within the episode from Pierce’s confusion over “Regionals” to the character defamation of Britta being the worst – especially when Britta was unveiled to be the Mouse King much to Dean Pelton’s disappointment, “ohh, Britta’s in this?” This running gag was celebrated with the biggest laugh from me as Abed deviously utilised the naïvety and natural un-talent of the tone deaf Britta to derail the Christmas pageant after finding out their musical escapades may not be limited to the festive holiday season as Abed had originally hoped.

‘Regional Holiday Music’ struck well with audiences as a Christmas episode, a Glee parody concept  and an original musical production that will be fondly remembered during the shows noticeable and unspecified absence over the coming months.

Other Glee/Community Tropes and Parodies:

- Mr. Rad with his ‘boy-ish’ charm is meant to parody Mr. Schuester in Glee, if only Mr. Rad had a chance to rap

- Annie mentions they never let her rap, a call-back to the Season 2 DVD outtakes of Alison Brie preforming an unorthodox method of rapping

- The Study Room was arranged to theatre seating, similar to the Glee club room

- The non-verbal pianist in the Study Room, a common occurrence in Glee

- The Acappella music cues in-between lines, similar to Glee

- Mr. Rad reference to the Kings of Leon is a call-back to Ryan Murphy and his feud with the band with Glee being unable to secure the music licence to recreate their music