‘Community’ smart about being dumb — and funny

Honestly, how much can one show be expected to take?

The fact that TV's brainiest show about dumb people is routinely destroyed in the ratings by TV's dumbest show about brainy people is either ironic -- I've never really been sure since that Alanis Morissette song -- or the sort of thing that could cause a rift in the space-time continuum.

Yet, week in and week out, "Community" (8 p.m. Thursdays, KSNV-TV, Channel 3) and its lovable misfits at Greendale Community College draw less than half the audience of the series CBS sent to crush it: "The Big Bang Theory."

If that weren't bad enough, come January, Fox will send the "American Idol" results show up against them both.

What's next? ABC throwing "Dancing with the Stars" into the mix? ESPN moving "Monday Night Football" to Thursdays? Maybe E! could blow up the night for good by sending the Kardashians to the Jersey Shore to open a pawn shop/rehab facility catering to hoarding, crab-fishing, little-person sister wives and their cake-decorating, pageant-competing children who are desperately trying to lose weight.

"It's become sort of comedic for us, because we're just like, 'Aww, what's next? What is next?' " says "Community's" Danny Pudi, whose quirky Abed sees life through TV-colored glasses. "Pretty soon we're going to be running just in local outlets -- it's not going to be national anymore. Or it's going to be airing only on Hulu."

He's joking, obviously, but the cast does seem to relish the underdog role and the drastically lowered expectations that come with it. "There is a little bit of room for, like, 'Hey, we can try stuff here,' " Pudi says. "We have a little bit of room for experimentation."

"Community" could have been content delivering more glee than "Glee" through the random silliness of its core study group, led by disbarred attorney Jeff (Joel McHale), who has single-handedly caused Hollywood's snark factories to add a third shift to keep up with demand.

But it's that experimentation -- such as last week's delightfully bizarre ode to stop-motion, animated Christmas specials -- that really lets the comedy shine. Like the brilliant-yet-little-seen "Arrested Development" and "Better Off Ted" before it, "Community" is operating on a hilariously higher plane.

This fall's "Basic Rocket Science" episode spoofed astronaut movies by trapping the cast in an '80s-era, KFC-sponsored space simulator. Because, well, why not?

In the ridiculously over-the-top "Epidemiology," everyone at the campus Halloween party was turned into zombies. And the sense of joy was even more infectious than their bites.

One week found Abed playing out a "secret episode" in the background of other scenes. Another had Betty White, who had guest starred as an anthropology teacher, turn up weeks later just to explain the convoluted plot of "Inception" to a couple of tribesmen in the Congo.

Even on the rare occasion when "Community" has to rely on a TV convention, the show turns it on its head. A recent "bottle episode" -- a cost-saving measure in which a plot device confines the cast to a single, pre-existing set with no guest stars -- was acknowledged by the Hollywood-obsessed Abed, and eventually by the more rational Jeff, as being a bottle episode.

But every big idea suffers in comparison when they're -- misguidedly -- held up to the standards of last spring's now classic "Modern Warfare," which saw an out-of-control paintball game transform the campus into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The result was a jaw-droppingly elaborate evisceration of action movie tropes that was the most inspired 30 minutes of TV all year.

"Community" has a small but devoted following, and if you're not part of it, seriously, get yourself to Hulu, on-demand or NBC.com, buy the first season on DVD -- to paraphrase Oleta Adams, I don't care how you get there, just get there when you can.

But its fans can't seem to stop themselves from whining that "Community's" wild tangents distract from character development.

Character development? The ensemble -- which also includes ex-football star Troy (Donald Glover), militant Britta (Gillian Jacobs) and earnest, Disney princess-looking former Adderall addict Annie (Alison Brie) -- is among TV's greatest. It's so stacked, co-star Chevy Chase often seems like an afterthought. But I don't wonder what happens to the characters when they go home. They're here to entertain us, like those cymbal-playing monkeys -- only with more pop-culture references and better skin.

"Community" has never hidden its lack of realism. "Is it me," Jeff once asked, "or is this place getting more cartoonish every day?" "Yeah, it's exciting," Abed responded. "I painted a tunnel on the side of the library. When it dries, I'm going for it."

And the comedy does the character stuff just fine when it wants to. But "Community" seemingly has made it its mission to go big before it ultimately goes home.

As Troy, who's quietly challenging Abed for the title of "Community" MVP, once said: "There is a time and place for subtlety. And that time was before 'Scary Movie.' "

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Sundays. E-mail him at clawrence@ reviewjournal.com.