Community: 10 Running Gags That Need To Be In The Movie

The Community movie is finally happening and fans can breathe a sigh of relief as the “Six Seasons and a Movie” prophecy is finally set to be fulfilled. With most of the main cast confirmed to return and many rumors now known to be true, it’s the best moment to rewatch the show once more and get ready for the movie.

While details about the plot nor a release date were revealed, fans are already speculating what elements of the show will appear in the film, and the list of hilarious running gags is long.

11/11 Dean Pelton’s Outfits

Dean Pelton is as weird as he’s adorable and one of his most distinctive traits is his passion for dressing in exuberant, over-the-top outfits. Always using the slightest news or announcements as an excuse to dress extravagantly, his unusual entrances are often great episode highlights.

With his presence confirmed in the movie, fans hope Dean Pelton will be back with all his playful traits, thus lots of weird costumes and terrible puns to announce his arrival.

9/11 Changuage

With his hilarious mix of quirkiness and unreliability, Chang is arguably the funniest character in the show. Throughout six seasons he changed from professor to student and villain to friend, but something that he never got over was making bad puns with his last name “Chang”.

The “Changuage” used to be a tiny persona remark until eventually got out of hand like everything related to Chang does. As his puns only got more absurd, viewers couldn’t help but laugh and wait for the next one. Chang is confirmed in the movie, and a “Changuage” throwback sounds like a great first line for when his character returns.

8/11 Britta’d

Britta is a character with questionable principles and a tendency for hypocrisy, which makes her the target of several jokes about how she’s the worst, with the show itself intensifying the joke by making the character dumber and dumber as the seasons went by.

Even though Britta’s decrease in intelligence isn’t necessarily her best trait, the way she always messes up everything ended up inspiring the study group to create a word to describe her persona; if something suddenly becomes tedious, pretentious, or complicated, they say it was Britta’d. The term became a recurring thing and even Britta used the word eventually. Since it’s something that easily sums up her character, it’s also a running gag that could fit easily in the movie.

7/11 The Darkest Timeline

One of the aspects that makes Community so different from other sitcoms is the way the show blends so many unpredictable, over-the-top bits amid the ordinary college environment. From an actual zombie apocalypse to reality turning into stop-motion, there’s one special running gag that never fails to amuse fans: the darkest timeline.

Related: Abed’s Top 10 Movie References In Community

Introduced in the beloved episode “Remedial Chao Theory”, the darkest timeline is supposedly an alternate dimension where nothing has occurred as planned to the OG team. Among an armless Jeff, an alcoholic Shirley, and an evil Abed, the comeback of these alternate versions could bring about memorable moments in the movie.

6/11 “Awwww!”

“Annie, stop awwing everything!”, Troy once said. Annie’s most distinctive characteristics are related to the childish ways she deals and reacts to things, often a huge contrast to all the outrageously funny stuff happening all around her.

What makes this running gag so good, though, is the way other members of the cast adhered to it throughout the show, and also how the adorable expression is usually followed by an offensive remark, cutting it immediately. There are many quotes that prove Annie is one of the best characters in the show but sometimes all it takes is an “Awww” to fall in love with her, and fans hope she’ll bring the bit back in the movie.

5/11 Paintball

“Modern Warfare” is arguably the biggest turning point in the series and is unanimously considered the episode that turns viewers into faithful fans of Community. Offering incredible pop culture references and subverting conventional sitcoms storytelling, the episode featuring a paintball war taken way too seriously is so popular among fans that it eventually became a recurring bit.

The paintball episodes offer some of the best character dynamics in the show, and fans definitely wouldn’t complain if the upcoming movie was entirely set in another paintball competition. While this is highly unlikely, a quick reference would be just enough to evoke in the fans a great deal of nostalgia.

4/11 Daybreak

Every Community fan eventually stops to think at some point of the show about what is this song that’s played constantly. Well, the answer is “Daybreak”, and fans often get surprised when they realize how recurring the song has been throughout the seasons.

Related: 10 Funniest Community Characters, According To Reddit

The song is a Jazz melody performed by Michael Haggins and simply fits with everything. Played in moments of happiness, sadness, and even moments of thrill and suspense, its contagious melody forced its way into the main characters’ minds, and shall most definitely return in the Community movie as subtly as it was inserted in the show.

3/11 Troy And Abed In The Morning!

Probably the most beloved running gag in Community, “Troy and Abed In The Morning” relates to the two characters’ recurring imaginary talk show, where they pretend to interview several figures of the Greendale campus or simply just fool around, always ending the show with their iconic catchphrase.

Although this running gag sounds like a must-have in the film, Donald Glover, or Childish Gambino, who plays Troy, isn’t confirmed in the upcoming movie yet, making fans questions whether this is it or his appearance will be an eventual surprise.

2/11 Jeff’s Moral Lessons

Jeff Winger is far from being a good person and the way Community often puts him in the center of the group as an enlightening person ends up being hilarious, especially when his deceptive and manipulative tendencies become way too obvious in his speeches.

With a mix of irony and conviction, the lawyer always manages to put the group in line in the face of the most absurd situations. His moral lessons are vital and clearly showcase how Jeff is the character who keeps the group together, thus Community wouldn’t work at all without him and his sayings… with the same applying to the movie.

1/11 Six Seasons And A Movie

It’s true that the “Six Seasons And A Movie” gag quickly went from an unassuming joke to the actual mantra of Community and its fanbase, but it’s still a comical bit when one stops to think of the massive proportions the casual joke delivered by Abed in Season 2 gave force to.

It’s safe to say that, without this running gag, it’s possible that there wouldn’t even be a movie conversation. Hopefully, not only the fans but also the cast and the writers went along with the iconic phrase, and with Community being such a hilarious self-aware show and the movie now being confirmed, it’s quite likely that “Six Seasons And A Movie” will be mentioned again.

Next: 10 Unresolved Community Storylines Fans Want Answered In The Movie