How Family Guy Inadvertently Resulted In Community’s Stop-Motion Christmas Special

Family Guy” and “Community” don’t seem have a ton in common as sitcoms.

Okay sure, they both have a character who exists as a punching bag (Britta/Meg) and they both have zero qualms about going in a meta direction, but beyond that it’s hard to imagine the shows having much influence on each other.

There is one surprising connection between the two, however, which involves the way “Community” often dabbled in animation.

The show’s first venture away from its live-action format was with season 2’s “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas.” It was done entirely in stop motion, and its widely considered one of the best episodes of the entire show. In a 2018 interview with Decider, showrunner Dan Harmon recalled what first sparked the idea for the episode: “When Comcast bought NBC for a very brief period there, between NBC presidents, there was this guy [former Chairman of NBC Universal] Jeff Gaspin, and I had a meeting with him.

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