7 TV Shows to Watch If You Liked ‘Community’
With the Community movie coming to Peacock it’s a good time to revisit the six seasons before the movie. When you graduate from the series like the study group graduated Greendale, you may want more. Here are some other shows that offer their own kind of surreal, self-referential live-action comedy if you liked Community.
If you liked ‘Community’ you may have ‘Scrubs’ to thank
The medical comedy Scrubs predates Community on NBC. Narrated by new resident J.D. (Zach Braff), Scrubs could break the fourth wall at any time within J.D.’s head. These included fantasy sequences, which isn’t how Community broke the fourth wall, but allowed Scrubs to get surreal.
Scrubs did have its own movie within Sacred Heart Hospital though. J.D. was writing a horror script called Dr. Acula about a vampire doctor who turns out to be Dracula in the surprise twist. Where’s the Dr. Acula movie, Peacock? Scrubs is streaming on Hulu.
If you liked ‘Community,’ meet the Bluths of ‘Arrested Development’
Arrested Development broke the fourth wall so hard that people still quote its format online. Ron Howard narrated the story of the Bluth family and whenever one would make some bold claim, Howard was quick to correct them in voiceover stating, “He didn’t.”
The arrest of George Bluth, Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor) exposes the dysfunction of the rest of the family. Michael (Jason Bateman) tries to hold it together, but he’s frequently thwarted by Gob (Will Arnett)’s magic, Lindsay (Portia de Rossi)’s spending, Buster (Tony Hale)’s neediness and Lucille (Jessica Walter)’s drinking. The show brilliantly set up longterm jokes over the course of several episodes or seasons. Arrested Development is streaming on Hulu and Netflix until March 14.
‘Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television’ is the funniest show you’ve never heard of
If you’ve never heard of Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television, now is the perfect time to discover both seasons. It was one of YouTube’s original series before they launched Cobra Kai and it’s just as good.
Hansen plays a caricature of himself. He wants to let cameras follow him around as he teams up with a real cop (Samira Wiley) and busts real criminals. Not only does the absurd premise satirize Hollywood egos, but it messes with the format, too. Hansen comes home to a sitcom family with a studio audience after his tough day on the hard hitting streets. Both seasons are still streaming on YouTube.
If you liked ‘Community,’ Garry Shandling made the original meta sitcom
Garry Shandling became acclaimed for his HBO comedy The Larry Sanders Show. That’s not the show we’re recommending on this list. While Larry Sanders pulled back the curtain on the talk show world, his first show blew the lid off of the television sitcom.
It’s Garry Shandling’s Show was Shandling’s satire of a TV sitcom based around a comedian. The difference was, Garry knew he had his own TV show, spoke directly to the audience and could manipulate things at his will. He even had a flashback machine and a theme song that mocked theme songs. Only one season is streaming, for purchase on Prime Video, but it’s worth seeking out the DVD set.
Decades before ‘Community,’ ‘Sledge Hammer!’ busted the cop drama
Cop dramas have always been a staple of television, from Dragnet to Hill Street Blues to NYPD Blue. Back in 1986, Alan Spencer created a show that skewered cop dramas harder than the short-lived Police Squad.
Sledge Hammer (David Rasche) was the typical antihero cop who didn’t play by the rules, despite his captain (Harrison Page) and partner (Anne-Marie Martin)’s frustrations. Sledge spoke to his gun, to whom he opened up more than any other human. Since the genre never died, Sledge Hammer! still holds up, and there’s a meta gag between seasons 1 and 2 that would make Community’s Abed (Danny Pudi) proud. A season of Sledge Hammer! is streaming on Crackle but both are available on DVD.
‘How I Met Your Mother’ foreshadowed the self-aware sitcom
Community gradually revealed that Abed was onto the formulae of TV sitcoms. How I Met Your Mother started that way. With Bob Saget narrating the story of how he met his children’s mother from the future, the very first episode revealed he was misleading them with roundabout stories.
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For nine seasons, How I Met Your Mother prolonged the reveal of the mother. While it frustrated some viewers, the point was never to reveal the mystery. It was how long they could creatively delay it. Along the way, they used the subjective format and pretaped segments to orchestrate running gags and connections. And now, How I Met Your Father builds off it further. Both series stream on Hulu.
Will they or won’t they break the fourth wall in meta ‘Moonlighting’
The chemistry between Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd was only part of the fun of Moonlighting. The show stretched out the romance between partner private investigators, but also had fun with the conventions of a television show. David (Willis) and Maddie (Shepherd) would talk to the camera and frequently refer to the fact that they are on a television show.
There was a musical episode and a Shakespeare episode, and even one where Rhona Barrett mediated between the feuding stars. Creator Glenn Gordon Caron recently announced plans to bring Moonlighting to streaming, but until then, all five seasons are on DVD.
