The second season of Community is out today on DVD and to celebrate we wanted to take a look at one of our favourite characters from the show.
There’s nothing more indicative of the show’s oddball sensibility than the character of Craig Pelton, the Dean of Greendale College, played by Jim Rash.
An irregular feature of the first season it is in the second season where Dan Harmon, Community’s creator and showrunner, began to bring the character out of his shell and into the lives of our favourite study group more and more. Never has there been a more ineffectual academic administrator with such a flexible wardrobe.
See?
In season two Harmon and his production team produce some tremendously imaginative stories, brimming with heart and always ready to throw in a killer line. The Hallowe’en episode is a wonderful take off of the entire horror movie genre as well as seasonal episodes of sit-coms, fans of the Dean will love Conspiracy Theories and interior Design which features Professor Professorson and introduces Dean Dangerous. Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas is a memorable stop-motion animated seasonal tale with some hilarious character designs and the Richard Ayoade-directed Critical Film Studies plays on your expectations and then kicks them in the gut. If expectations had guts.
Simply put, Community is a must-see. The show is getting better and better (all eyes and ears are on the forthcoming fourth season, the first after the sacking of Harmon as the show’s main man) and it’s well worth checking out. There’s too little smart, stupid comedy about. It may just chang your life.
To throw your appetite into the ring and give it a thorough whetting here’s a little taste of the Dean in season two,
And the best thing is – this man…
won an Oscar,
There isn’t enough admiration in the world.
