Television has grown more and more competitive these days, putting it up to Hollywood to keep their standards high. If you snooze you lose, and right now Hollywood’s threatening to take a long doze into hibernation.

This is due to fantastic shows - Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Wire and The Sopranos – breaking onto the scene in recent years. Sure, HBO dramas are garnering a lot of attention, but do any comedies deserve mention in that same list? Yes, actually. Louie, for one. And Curb Your Enthusiasm. South Park, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia and Arrested Development. And perhaps my favourite show of them all. Community..

Known for it’s pop culture references and ability to adopt other television shows’ styles and tropes, Community has become a favourite to comedy fans everywhere. After two and a half seasons, however, NBC decided not to include Community in its mid-season line-up, instead opting for the almost-as-funny 30 Rock. The remainder of season three’s episodes will be played after the mid-season line-up, but for now the long-term future of the show is unknown.

We need to save the show. Find out how you can help at the bottom of the page. Here are the Top 10 Reasons Community needs our help:

10. Meta

Without having a full and in-depth understanding of meta, I can say that Community uses a lot of meta, and I really like meta. This shall be brief to save myself a long and difficult time of research. I’ll say that as far as I know meta-humour is simply self-referencing for the purposes of comedy. The main culprit of this is Abed, the character suspected of having Asperger’s, who relates to everything via his knowledge of film and television.

I must warn you that watching the below shows – especially to a newcomer to the show – that you will most likely lose about two hours of your life watching “best of” clips of Community. While I would urge you to watch them episode by episode, I can not be to blame when click leads to click leads to click…

9. Dean Pelton

Señor Chang, Greendale College’s Spanish teacher, is known for using his own name to pun, but I prefer the wildness of Dean Pelton’s exuberance. With constant costume changes and extreme lack of safety provided in the college, including fake fire alarms, it’s hard not to warm to his well-meaning if intimidating ways. Anyone who has no shame dressing up as Madonna or saying “drive by Deaning”, I’m with him. The homosexual tension that’s constantly just around the corner is too much to handle at times and his fascination (let’s say fascination…) with Jeff Winger or anyone of the male gender is yet another inappropriate turn to add to everything else.

8. Annie’s Boobs

Well, it just speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

Oh, you haven’t seen that part?

Okay then, here you go:

Yes, so the monkey is named Annie’s Boobs. After Annie’s boobs, of course, but my praise goes not to any physical features of the beautiful and shapely Alison Brie, but the troublesome monkey who steals trinkets and hides out in the vents, as you’ve seen above.

7. Dan Harmon’s Writing

Joel McHale, before Community, was reading scripts and trying to choose his next role. He couldn’t find anything to his liking. When he read Harmon’s script for the pilot episode, he found it to be the best thing he’d ever read. With such great writing evident in the episodes, it’s not hard to see why.

Harmon and his team are not solely a comedic force but have a complete understanding of conflict, of exploiting television clichés and of playing with audience expectations.

If there is no return of Community after season three, be very excited for Harmon’s next project.

6. References and Homages

This is mostly Abed’s doing once again; the cultural reference machine. From Pulp Fiction to comparing the group to the Breakfast Club to treating a whole episode to the film Dinner with André, Abed’s references often add insult to injury, or humour to humour.

Abed’s love for (the abysmal) Cougar Town is one of the most loved references throughout the series. He needs calming down when he heard the show was moved to midseason, trying to stay positive by repeating “six seasons and a movie”.

And apparently Cougar Town likes to reference Community also. How nice.

Somehow the references to the unfunny show in the funny are more satisfying than the other way around…

5. Jeff Winger – How Is He So Likeable?

The casting of Community is one of the huge factors to its success. No character is more important than the central character and Harmon’s version of himself, Jeff Winger. Originally a cynical and money-hungry lawyer, and resisting as much as possible the charm of his misfit bunch of friends, Winger brings out the humanity of the group in every episode. Never out of speeches and always knowing what’s best (after many conscience-defying stunts) Winger keeps karma on the group’s side and keeps us in love with him and his friends.

4 .Troy and Abed

What is there to say? If you’re not aware of the phenomenon that is the best friendship on television today, you should be. You really need to be.

Their unashamed love for each other, their secret handshake, their improvised questions for Batman, their rap. Everything. They know how to tickle our funny bone as well as giving us a warm and tender feeling about our BFFs.

Troy is the high school quarterback who must adjust to being a regular unsure boy and Abed is the dysfunctional, emotionless, but utterly lovable Asperger sufferer who can’t relate to people, but who can always relate to his television shows.

I want to be in one these friendships. Imagining the same messed up fantasies as each other and losing all of the usual insecurities that are involved when you admit your innermost thoughts. Such as eating yourself if you woke up as a donut.

Perhaps the best thing they’ve ever done is get Jeff in at six in the morning…

Harmonies, people: “Troy and Abed in the Mooooorning!”

3. Cameos

Aside from the wonderfully-rounded and equally discriminated group are a host of enigmatic fellow students whose presence allows for some top quality laughs in the classroom. For a start we have Star-Burns, known solely for his star-shaped side burns, as you do. (He likes to be called Alex, but who cares?) There’s the devilishly troublemaking OAP Leonard; Vaughn, the eternal hippy with the world’s smallest nipples and Fat Neil, who likes Dungeons & Dragons and is, well, fat.

That’s just for starters. In addition to the fantastically off-kilter Ken Leong as Señor Chang, the single episode cameos that feature in the series are second to none.

More interested in some bigger names? Jack Black as the desperate friend Buddy, Anthony Michael Hall as the ignorant bully and Drew Carey is Jeff’s ex-boss. Betty White is an anthropology lecturer who raps with my boys for Chrisakes!

Community cameos are second to none. And this beats all;

It’s Patton Oswalt! Yes!

2. Racism?

Not the bad kind, where your prejudices hurt those of a specific ethnicity, but the funny kind that plays on our racial stereotypes and challenges you to think in a more open way. Making you laugh in the process is an added bonus, of course, and there is no fear of Community letting you down in that respect.

With the group featuring as many different ethnicities and character types as possible – Annie Edison’s character was originally Asian, but had to be changed due to difficulty in finding a suitable actress – and playing on each of their different character flaws to brilliant results.

1. The Dedication and Forward Thinking

Sitcoms, especially in the modern day are becoming more and more predictable and reliant on simple

character traits. Oh, Charlie Harper makes a sexual innuendo. Oh, both Mike and Molly are fat, and therefore like to eat. Hilarious.

Not only are the jokes in Community a lot funnier than the average situational comedy, but the intellect that they put into their craft and the respect they show their audience by pushing their writing as far as they can go is never seen and really respectable.

The best example of this is the Beetlejuice gag. Three years of preparation went into a single gag, showing how into comedy Dan Harmon and his team are. In three separate seasons, the word Beetlejuice was mentioned, and if you’ve ever seen Beetlejuice you know what happens when you mention him a third time…

Talk about dedication and forward thinking. Or obsession, if you feel that way. Either way, you won’t see anything that intricate in your typical shallow sitcom.

Still not convinced?

Watch Troy write a joke:

Oh dear. I miss it.

Don’t you miss it?

Feel free to take part by “hash tagging” ( Hashtagging sounds like an explicit manoeuvre…)

#SaveCommunity, #SixSeasonsAndAMovie or #OccupyNBC and do your part to saving Greendale.

By Conor O’Hagan

Disclaimer: These aren’t all the terrible TV shows the 80s vomited into existence. Rather, we chose to vary our sampling based on the many different types of shows including sitcoms, dramas, and a spinoffs. We also– Seriously though, bicycle shorts! They were basically tights with the pant legs missing. And men wore them! Even when they weren’t going to be bicycling! It’s just wrong. And you know it’s wrong. Dad. Sorry, sorry, we’re getting way off topic here. Please enjoy the article. We’re, uh, going to fix ourselves a stiff drink and pray the nightmares don’t return tonight.

1. Mr. Smith

In the history of TV, there have been many shows about things that talk that shouldn’t: horses, cars, dogs, Snooki, but it turns out America draws the line at monkeys. In 1983, Mr. Smith debuted in September and was cancelled by December, with 13 episodes somehow being made before God intervened and sealed all evidence of its existence into the Ark of the Covenant.

It will melt your face.

What made Mr. Smith such a piece of excrement? It’s hard to pinpoint exactly. The show featured an orang-utan named ChaCha who first becomes separated from his trainer after a car accident, and then ends up in a research lab. Which he escapes from. Then, probably just for the hell of it, the monkey finds an experimental serum that increases human intelligence. He drinks it and his IQ increases to exactly 256. Oh and he can talk too after this. What do you do with a monkey smarter than you that can talk? You make him a political advisor in Washington, of cour- Oh wait, hold on, no you don’t. You cancel the shit out of this show because wtf?

2. Small Wonder (1985-1989)

Imagine you could build a perfect robot servant. What would it be like? Would it be a small, adolescent girl in a red and white dress? If you answered “yes”, then congratulations, you are or probably will be a registered sex offender in the near future.

Ted Lawson is an engineer who builds V.I.C.I. (Voice Input Child Identicant…a shiver up your spine is the appropriate response), an android meant to help the handicapped. But instead of doing that, Ted takes it home and pretends it’s his real daughter, forcing his family, which includes an actual real, human child, to play along. As if this isn’t already fucked up enough, V.I.C.I. or Vicki comes with super strength, speed, intelligence, and a complete lack of emotion.

She will straight up murder your punk ass.

To be fair, part of the reason she’s brought home is so that she can learn what it means to be a human. She lives in a small cabinet. Sooooo an abused human we guess?

People loved this shit and it lasted four seasons. They had to “upgrade” Vicki to account for her aging and height gain. Though the boob suppression system Ted must have constructed seemed to work out just fine.

3. Manimal (1983)

A man…that can change into animals…animal man…man into animal…manimal! Yup. That was the show, somehow even worse than it sounds. Dr. Jonathan Chase, using ancient African and possibly Tibetan techniques, proving racism and ignorance really are the same thing, has learned the secrets of what divides animal and man.

Man throws less fecal matter? Notice, we said “less.” Not none.

With his Manimal powers, Dr. Jonathan Chase or Manimal (We cannot type Manimal enough into this article, so Manimal!) and his friend, Ty Earl, help Detective Brooke Mackenzie solve mysteries and fight crime.

Manimal could change into any animal he wanted to, but almost always chose a hawk and a panther in every episode. Why? Because elephants and lions just weren’t in the budget. And, like the old adage says, you can only see a Manimal turn into a hawk or a panther three times before it gets old. The show got the axe after only eight episodes, but Manimal would return to television in 1998 for an episode of Night Man, a show that did slightly better than Manimal’s own but was still pretty terrible.

4. One of the Boys (1982)

Okay, so if we told you there was going to be a television show starring Mickey Rooney, Dana Carvey, Nathan Lane, Meg Ryan and the guy that gets an axe to the back in the Shining, wouldn’t you be excited? No? Well you would be if it was still the 90s. Though One of the Boys had been thrown together well before most of these people really hit it big, the talent roster here was pretty amazing (considering they all really did hit it big way before or by the 90s).

Welcome to the NBC sitcom named by TV Guide as one of the worst television shows of all time. The un-killable Mickey Rooney plays Oliver, a senior citizen that leaves his retirement home to move in with his Grandson (Carvey) at college. Somehow, this great premise lasted only one season. We know what you’re thinking. How did it even make a whole season?! Not even the internet knows, so we’ll assume it’s the same reason Kesha has a career: A simple pact with Satan. Like most celebrities.

Probably a fun set though: Carvey confusing the hell out of Rooney by doing impersonations of his long dead show business friends. Rooney repeatedly mistaking Nathan Lane for Judy Garland. Or Meg Ryan…uh… doing her thing, you know…

You sure are, kiddo.

5. AfterMASH

Few remember that after M.A.S.H, the much loved, amazingly drawn out and overplayed mega hit TV show, there was AfterMASH, a show featuring the same themes but without the war and much of the original cast. Producers must have hoped they could squeeze one last ounce of juice out of the original, which lasted longer than the actual Korean War.

Just saying.

AfterMASH starred Harry Morgan (Colonel Potter), Jamie Farr (Klinger) and William Christopher (Father Mulcahy), the only three cast members of M.A.S.H., unsurprisingly, who voted against ending the original series. It featured Potter working at a veteran’s hospital with Klinger as his administrative assistant again. Oh, and Father Mulcahy played the priest! Again!

Despite what was basically M.A.S.H with a skeleton crew, the show actually did semi-decent for its first season, but in its second, ratings dropped lower than Klinger’s self respect. For some reason, the same worn out formula that had ended M.A.S.H., the show with all the cast, including its very popular protagonists, just couldn’t get AfterMASH going. Why? Why?! We just can’t figure it out.

By Paul K Pickett and Trevor J Pickett

Despite being a commercial failure upon its initial release (that’s what you get for going toe to toe with Half-Life 2), Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is still growing strong. Despite ostensibly causing developer Troika Games to go under several months later and containing a notorious amount of bugs (although the Troika crew did work unpaid on a patch attempting to fix these), the game was well liked by critics and continues to have a faithful cult following to this day. One of the things Bloodlines is best known for is arguably its writing, and with such a large cast of highly memorable characters it’s easy to see why. But which NPCs really drew you in (or, alternatively, repelled you), making the game all the better for it? Read on for a tentative top ten.

Jeanette/Therese Voerman

The game’s poster girl and archetypal Malkavian, Jeanette is both eye candy and a well-rounded (okay, perhaps not the best choice of words for various reasons) character. A disturbed young woman turned vampire, the player sees the flirtatious but childish Jeanette battle with her sister dour businesswoman Therese… only it is eventually revealed that they both live in the same lovingly rendered body. “Tourette”, as she is otherwise affectionately known, is probably the best known character in Bloodlines, and is excellently portrayed by the lovely Grey DeLisle.

Velvet Velour

Velvet Velour, known to her favourites as simply VV, is owner and star of Hollywood’s most popular strip club, the suggestively named Vesuvius. A rival to Jeanette as far as eye candy goes, beneath her conventionally vampish (you know what I mean) exterior lies the gentle, easily love-struck soul of a poet. Seemingly a genuinely nice person (inasmuch as a vampire can be), it’s hard to dislike VV. Additionally, if your character is a Malkavian your mad insight gives you a brief glimpse into her past (something, admittedly, she is not very keen on elaborating on).

Gimble

Quite possibly one of the first opponents you ever face, and also one of the creepiest. You know something is up from the moment you hear his weird, wheedling voice down the telephone line, and then once you actually meet him in the flesh (try not to shudder) and he tells you about how he purposely removed his own hand in order to replace it with a prosthetic… yeaaah. It’s hard to be surprised when he ambushes you with a severed arm (which actually makes a rather serviceable weapon for a little while), but one thing’s certain: you certainly feel a lot happier once he’s dead and you’re out of there.

Aleister Grout

Dr Aleister Grout, Malkavian Primogen, never actually physically appears during the course of the game (unless you count his ashes after he was staked and left out for the sun); the only way you actually encounter him is in the form of a series of recordings that are scattered about his mansion. Despite this, his monologues still give you an excellent sense of his character, most notably his rather steep descent into madness shortly after being brought into vampire society (though you could arguably blame his Malkavian blood for a good deal of that).

Knox Harrington

Knox is the spectacularly irritating fanboy ghoul of Bertram Tung who ambushes you shortly after you start playing the game, and it’s all you can do to stop yourself from attacking him upon hearing him exclaim “Oh jeez, oh man!” for the fourth time in as many lines of dialogue. However, I still have a grudging fondness for Knox and cartoon vampire-emblazoned jacket, especially as it’s strongly intimated that he’s far smarter than he acts. Think about it; would Tung really have a complete idiot as a ghoul?

Smiling Jack

An ex-pirate turned vampire voiced by John DiMaggio; what’s not to like? Jack, who first appeared in White Wolf’s Los Angeles by Night supplement, has your back from beginning to end, and as both an Anarch and a Brujah (as well as being a general badass) isn’t afraid of voicing his true opinions on the Prince. He’s also the one who’s responsible for introducing you to the mysterious taxi driver, and despite his brash exterior is heavily implied to have done enough behind the scenes meddling to impress even the most conniving kindred.

Nines Rodriguez

While the Anarchs, by their very nature, have no real leader, if they did have one it would undoubtedly be Nines. Nines is the one who ensures your continued existence by objecting to Prince LaCroix’s initial plan to execute you, also saving your unlife yet again by rescuing you from a Sabbat ambush. The guy is pretty damn tough. A survivor of the Great Depression, his brawling expertise can earn you some free combat skills if you play your cards rights, while towards the end of the game he even manages to single-handedly take out a werewolf (considering his grisly trophy he could very well have ripped its head clean off).

Beckett

A rare academic Gangrel, Beckett is a historian whose primary goal is to find out more about kindred origins. Having come to Santa Monica to investigate reports of unusual goings on in the area, he gives the player helpful – if sarcastic – advice as well as elaborating on his various academic theories (some of these notorious among other kindred scholars). With a sweet browncoat, shades to hide his glowing red eyes and voice acting talent of Michael Gough, it’s hard not to like Beckett at least a little bit.

Officer Chunk

The stereotypical overweight, middle-aged security guard, Chunk’s blissful ignorance and resolutely cheerful disposition makes it hard to feel more than occasional mild annoyance for him. Your encounters with Chunk frequently put him at the mercy of your disciplines, usually to hilarious effect (he does cut a rather funky figure on The Asylum’s dance floor, doesn’t he?). Chunk eventually ends up manning the reception desk at LaCroix’s downtown tower, but if you happen to kill him, he is replaced by his disturbingly similar brother. Maybe Chunk is smarter than he’s given credit for…

Gary Golden

Gary used to be known as Gorgeous Gary Golden before his embrace. Once a handsome – and arrogant – movie star, it was only a matter of time before a Nosferatu decided to inflict him with the clan’s personal brand of cruelly ironic justice. He carried on this clan tradition when embracing a childe of his own: Imalia had been a gorgeous and exceedingly vain supermodel in life. Disturbingly stealthy, darkly witty and with an appetite for the grotesque, these nights Gary is the undisputed Nosferatu Primogen and keeper of more juicy bits of Hollywood gossip than he cares to divulge.

Honourable Mention: The guy from the Van Helsing test. This poor guy is told to wave a cross at you in order to see if you react; you don’t. How you deal with him then is up to you, but few vampires would say no to some free blood (even if it is contained inside a rather hefty hazmat suit).

Ella found compiling this list a welcome break from trying to persuade people to buy laptops, but just don’t ask her to put them in any particular order; deciding on one would just be too damn hard.

Lou Gehrig – July 4, 1939

Farewell to Baseball Speech

Baseball fans thought that Lou Gehrig’s career would never end. The slugger was called the Iron Horse because he was so durable and dedicated to baseball. Sadly, his streak of 2,130 straight games was stopped at 36 when he contracted the fatal neurological disease that is named after him.

Gehrig lived only about 4 years after he retired from the New York Yankees. There still is no cure for the disease that killed the Iron Horse.

Nelson Mandela

I Am the First Accused

Nelson Mandela spent much of his life fighting for the equality of black people in South Africa. He was imprisoned in 1964 for working to overthrow the South African government by violence. He was held in prison for more than 20 years. His plight helped to focus the world’s attention on the struggle for black equality in South Africa, and around the world.

Ronald Reagan – Jan. 28, 1986

Challenger Speech

President Reagan gave a very moving and powerful speech just hours after the space shuttle Challenger exploded in the Florida sky, killing all aboard. This particular space shuttle flight was best known for it carrying a civilian – a teacher – into orbit for the first time ever. Its most famous line: “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.”

John F. Kennedy – Jan. 20, 1961

Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You

John F. Kennedy gave this very famous speech during his inauguration in 1961. The speech is largely remembered for its call of self-sacrifice on the part of the American people: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” However, the speech also highlighted his belief in the necessity of America to stand up for freedom in the world: “”Let every nation know… that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

One of the signature programs that came out of this famous speech was the Peace Corps program, which still today sends young Americans abroad as ambassadors for America.

Winston Churchill – May 13, 1940

Blood, Toil, Sweat and Tears

This was Winston Churchill’s first speech as prime minister. It was delivered as World War II was just beginning, with Hitler tearing across the continent. This speech made very clear that Churchill was fully committed to dedicating Great Britain to the defeat of the Nazi regime, whatever the cost: “You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory; victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

Winston Churchill is regarded by many experts as the greatest wartime leader of the 20th century. He recognized the menace that was building in Germany 10 years before war broke out.

John F. Kennedy – May 25, 1961

Decision to Go to the Moon

The Soviet Union put the first man into orbit on April 12, 1961. The US feared it was losing the race to space. This is when President Kennedy decided to announce a huge endeavor: A goal of putting a man on the moon by 1969. This was a very audacious goal, considering that the US had not even put a man into orbit yet. The Saturn rocket was only a dream of a few German engineers.

Most famous line: “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…”

America reached Kennedy’s goal on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. It’s too bad that Kennedy was not around to see that great day in world history.

Martin Luther King – 1963

I Have a Dream

Martin Luther King delivered this classic speech before the Lincoln Memorial during the March on DC for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. It was viewed as a major turn of the tide in the fight for the equality of blacks in America. Note that the passage “I have a dream” was not actually written in the speech; King ad libbed that legendary line.

A memorial to King was recently placed on The Mall in Washington, DC.

Franklin Roosevelt – March 4, 1933

The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself

The US was in a very deep depression in the early 1930s, and people felt that President Hoover had not shown proper sympathy for the country’s misery. President Roosevelt used his First Inaugural Address to try to ease the fears of the American people. He then began to institute many federal programs in an attempt to ease the suffering of the Depression.

Ronald Reagan – June 12, 1987

Tear Down This Wall

Germany was divided after World War II between the communist east and the free west. When President Reagan took office, he was determined to bringing down the Soviet Union, as well as uniting Germany. President Reagan helped to usher in the end of the communist era by urging the Soviet premier to ‘tear down this wall.” The wall came down in 1989 and the Soviet Union began to disband that same year. Reagan had left office the year before but his dream had become reality.

Winston Churchill – June 4, 1940

We Shall Fight On the Beaches

Winston Churchill, the great prime minister of Great Britain during World War II, gave this speech during the Battle Of France. At this time, it appeared possible that Nazi Germany would invade the island of Great Britain. Churchill did a brilliant job of describing the very real military disaster that was unfolding in Europe, while at the same time leaving no doubt that he believed that in the end, the Allies would prevail. Great Britain fought the Nazis alone until the Americans entered the war in 1941.

It will be interesting to see if we have as many great speech makers in the 21st century as we did in the 20th.

By Joseph Pickett

The Carina Nebula.

In this week’s “around the web” segment, ThisBlogRules ventures out into the furthest reaches of our galaxy, and other galaxies, by way of a trusty telescope; it turns out our universe can be pretty spectacular. We also take a look at some creepy abandoned water parks, one particularly nasty tattoo, and we examine the undying connection between nerds and spectacles. It’s all right here in our “around the web” special; just don’t stare at that tattoo for too long – it’ll give you nightmares.

The 10 Creepiest Water Parks on Earth via Environmental Graffiti

Bad Tattoo Job via My Bad Parent

The Most Incredible Space Imagery via DarkRoastedBlend

Why Do Nerds So Often Wear Glasses? via Neatorama

Paris Today and Yesterday – Paris 1940s via Bizarre Bytes

How to Get Out of an Awkward or Uncomfortable Situation (Without Being an Asshole) via Life Hacker

The 14 Worst Travel Destinations of the World via The Wondrous Design Magazine

By Hoochie Woochie, TBR Chancellor