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  • Ability over Appearance:
  • Accidentally-Correct Writing:
    • In "G.I. Jeff", Wingman gets court-martialed for shooting and killing Destro while he's parachuting from his downed aircraft. While this is Played for Laughs to poke fun at the G.I. Joe cartoon's total lack of death in its depiction of war, it's actually legitimate grounds for a court martial in real life — shooting a pilot who's bailed out of their downed aircraft is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.
    • In "Introduction to Finality", Evil Abed says that Britta's favorite superhero is X-Man, with the joke being that it's a fumbled attempt to guess a superhero name as she knows nothing about comic books. However, there really is a relatively obscure member of the X-Men called X-Man.
  • Acclaimed Flop: The series got rave reviews during its run on NBC but suffered from middling ratings and a lack of award success. It still managed to air five seasons before being cancelled and ultimately picked up for a sixth season on Yahoo, with the fabled movie finally in production for Peacock.
  • Actor-Inspired Element: Though Magnitude's "Pop Pop!" catchphrase wasn't created by Luke Youngblood, he did come up with the character's way of saying it throughout the show.
  • Actor Leaves, Character Dies:
    • When Chevy Chase left the show, he returned for a single scene in the Season 5 premiere, where it was explained why Pierce Hawthorne was Put on a Bus. A few episodes later, Mood Whiplash ensues when Shirley informs the group that Pierce has died. The following episode at least proves to be an oddly touching sendoff, rather than a spiteful one which also set up Troy's Long Bus Trip during the reading of Pierce's will.
    • Although often presumed to be for revenge based on Chase's vocal dissatisfaction with the show and his public feud with Dan Harmon, who stated in an interview that he and Chase had buried the hatchet before Chase had quit the show. However, the terms of Chase being released from his contract apparently forbid him from ever returning to the Community set under any circumstances.
  • Actor-Shared Background: A number of incidental details about actors transfer to their characters.
    • Both Abed and Danny Pudi are half-Polish on their mother's side.
    • Troy, like Donald Glover, was raised a Jehovah's Witness.
    • Annie's parents are divorced and she has a Jewish mother, like Alison Brie. Annie also mentions her birthday as being in late December (specifically the 19th, as shown in "Basic Crisis Room Decorum"), not far off from Alison Brie's birthday (December 29th).
    • Pierce Hawthorne is supposed to have made his fortune with a moist-towelette company called "Hawthorne Wipes." Chevy Chase, in real-life, also has a family fortune derived from a personal sanitation product. His real name is Cornelius Crane Chase, and he is the grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt Crane, who was heir to the Crane Plumbing company, which manufactures and distributes plumbing fixtures and products (most notably, toilets for home and commercial markets) in North America.
    • According to Abed, Britta was born on October 19, 1980. In real-life, Gillian Jacobs was born on October 19, 1982.
  • Ascended Fanon:
    • A common Alternate Character Interpretation for Leonard was that he's always acting so coarse and wild because he's living the young teen college experience he never got to have. "For A Few Paintballs More" featured Leonard confiding in Britta he has been in several wars, implying that he spent his early adulthood in the military.
    • The overwhelming fan response to the semi-accidental Jeff/Annie pairing influenced writers to make them into the primary Will They or Won't They? couple of the series. This video inspired a montage in the same vein, though in the show played for laughs, in Season 2. The creator says that Dan Harmon himself shouted out to them on Twitter before the episode aired, letting them know he had a surprise for them.
  • Banned Episode: Season 2's "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" was pulled from Netflix and Hulu streaming on June 2020. The episode had Chang cosplay as a dark elf, in what the other characters disgustedly remark looks like blackface. However, this ban does not extend to the DVD sets, Amazon Prime or Peacock, so it is available there legally if you want it.
  • Bonus Material:
    • The first season DVD set comes with a short Kickpuncher comic written by Troy and illustrated by fellow student Jim Mahfood, DVD Commentary, extended cuts of certain episodes, Hilarious Outtakes, Deleted Scenes, the "Study Break" shorts, and a couple new sketches.
    • The interiors of the DVD cases are designed as yearbooks, Greendale brochures and even Abed's notebook from "Cooperative Calligraphy".
    • Among the many tidbits included are (presumably canon) hometowns for the main characters. Strangely, everyone is kinda paired off in this respect: Jeff and Shirley are from Denver, Abed and Britta from Riverside, Annie and Troy from Greendale itself, and Pierce and Chang are from out-of-state (Wyoming and California respectively).
      • Season 3 episode "Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism" shows shared flashbacks of Shirley and Jeff as children, and while they don't specify that it's Denver it does confirm that they grew up in the same place.
  • Breakup Breakout:
  • California Doubling: The college is supposed to be located in suburban Denver, but was shot in Los Angeles; the Greendale interior is on a stage set while external shots of the campus are represented by various community colleges around the area. In addition, palm trees and cars with California plates are often visible in exterior shots. According to Dan Harmon on the DVD Commentary, the reason it doesn't snow during the show is because global warming hit Greendale pretty hard.
  • The Cast Show Off:
    • In "Interpretive Dance", Britta and Troy discover they're taking two different dance classes, tap and modern interpretation respectively. During the climax, Gillian Jacobs and Donald Glover get to show their struts in modern dance when Troy steps in to save Britta's tap performance after she sees Jeff's new flame and freezes in place. Both the in-universe and real-life audience are impressed, even Pierce.
    • In the same episode, Abed shows off his surprisingly good dance moves after everyone leaves the theater. This lets Danny Pudi put years of Polish folk dancing in his youth to good use.
    • Likewise, in "Regional Holiday Music," Donald Glover shows off that he is a rapid-fire singer that can switch genres at the drop of a hat.
    • The very first tag of the series shows off Donald Glover and Danny Pudi's rapping and beatboxing skills with the Spanish rap.
  • Cast the Runner-Up: Kumail Nanjiani was the runner-up for the role of Abed; he was later cast in the final two seasons of the show as Custodian Lapari.
  • Creative Differences: Chevy Chase was frequently dismissive of the quality of the show, with numerous reports of backstage arguments about the direction of the show and his character and a notable feud with creator Dan Harmon. His decision to quit the show in November 2012 came from Chase's displeasure and Pierce's increased bigotry. He was willing to film a brief cameo appearance in the Season 5 premiere, however, suggesting that the rift between himself and Harmon has been exaggerated to a degree.
  • Creator Backlash:
    • Outside of praising the other members of the cast, Chevy Chase rarely seemed to have much in the way of praise to say about the show. Seems to have lightened up as of 2020 - while he hasn't joined any of their reunions, he or his social media team frequently repost content from the show involving Pierce.
    • Dino Stamatopoulos expressed discomfort with playing Star-Burns, citing the amount of hours required to wait on set, his dislike of having to be touched so often so that the make-up for his character could be applied, difficulty with learning his (limited) lines, annoyance with Joel McHale (specifically regarding a conversation about Stamatopoulos' teeth), and feeling like there wasn't really much to the character. He also expressed anger when Dan Harmon was fired from the show following Season 3, and refused to reprise the role until Harmon was eventually brought back on for Season 5.
    • Yvette Nicole Brown took issue with Shirley having sex with Chang in Season 2, deeming it to be something her character never would have done.
    • Dan Harmon had a major backlash to Season 4 when he finally watched it after being rehired to the show for the fifth season. Specifically, he complained that the season felt like an "unflattering impression" of himself, and compared watching someone else write his characters without his involvement to someone liking a photo of his ex-girlfriend with a new partner. He did apologize for saying this later on however.
    • On that note, while they haven't come right out and said they dislike it, the cast acknowledge that Season 4 wasn't very up to par due to Harmon's lack of involvement.
    • Ken Jeong started to dislike how Chang was being written in the mid-seasons and was candid in an email he wrote to Dan Harmon about it. The scene in "Analysis of Cork-Based Networking" where Chang complains about his treatment from the rest of the group was taken almost word-for-word from the email Jeong sent. Jeong thanked Harmon for doing a better job humanizing his character in the last two seasons and has since described Chang's breakdown as one of the proudest moments of his acting career.
    • In a very mild example, Joel McHale has complained (notably on the commentary track for "Advanced Introduction to Finality") that the DVDs only feature the episodes as they originally aired, rather than including extended cuts due to the number of scenes that have to be cut to meet an ever shrinking running time.
    • Dan Harmon admitted that he really doesn't like how Britta was portrayed in the pilot episode. On top her seeming very different from her later characterization, Harmon didn't like how she basically existed to motivate Jeff to do things, comparing her to a mannequin.
    • While he didn't speak ill of the show itself, John Oliver admitted that his experience working on Community made him realize that he really wasn't cut out to be an actor, and had a difficult time playing off his costars. It's telling that he began hosting his own show shortly after the fifth season ended.
  • Creator's Favorite Episode:
  • The Danza: Pierce's father is named Cornelius, which is the actual first name of Chevy Chase.
  • Darkhorse Casting: With the exception of Chevy Chase (whose popularity had faded in recent years) and Ken Jeong (whose popularity had gone up due to the success of The Hangover), the majority of the ensemble was made up of relatively unknown actors. Joel McHale was known as the host of The Soup, Alison Brie was known for her recurring role on Mad Men, Donald Glover was an up-and-coming rapper and writer for 30 Rock, Gillian Jacobs had mostly worked in independent films, and Danny Pudi, Jim Rash, and Yvette Nicole Brown had done small roles or guest parts on various shows and films (the latter was mainly known as Helen on Drake & Josh). The show was a Star-Making Role for all of them.
  • Dawson Casting:
    • As of Season 1, Troy and Annie were (respectively) 19 and 18, being played by a 26-year-old and a 27-year-old. Jeff even comments that Annie is still a little too young to be "sexualized," in spite of the actress's age. It's especially weird in light of the fact that Gillian Jacobs is the same age as Alison Brie, but playing a character her own age.
    • Danny Pudi was 31 at the start of the show while Abed falls under a Vague Age with the implication he isn't too far removed from Annie and Troy. He was living in the dorms with his father paying for tuition, implying he was also a recent high school grad, but in "Mixology Certification" Troy turned 21 (after mentioning he was held back one year in elementary school) and the group goes to a bar, a deal was made to get Annie a fake ID so she could join them while Abed had no issue and seemed familiar with being in a bar.
  • Defictionalization:
    • Screener DVDs were packaged with cootie catchers based on the opening credits sequence.
    • The video game played in “Digital Estate Planning” was turned into a real video game.
  • Development Gag:
    • Season 3 introduces the character Annie Kim, a nod to how Annie was originally envisioned as an Asian character.
    • Doubling as Casting Gag, Fred Willard appears as Pierce in Abed's Imagine Spot during the Season 4 premiere. Willard was one of the actors considered for the role.
  • Directed by Cast Member: Two Season 6 episodes — "Lawnmower Maintenance & Postnatal Care" and "Queer Studies & Advanced Waxing" — were both co-directed by Jim Rash.
  • Dueling Shows:
    • Originally ran against another Post Modern primetime sitcom about a ragtag Five-Token Band of misfits in school, Glee.
    • Season 2 changes some of the focus to $#!+ My Dad Says, with a sub plot about Troy's twitter account, Old White Man Says, collecting the insane rantings of Pierce with Pierce wanting to cash in on it with a sitcom. The series premiere of that show was even the same night as the Season 2 premiere (which had a related Troy subplot).
    • In part due to the focus on nerdom in general, and later being put up against each other in the same time slot, there is a certain rivalry with The Big Bang Theory. It's probably more apparently between the fandoms rather than anything else.
  • Dyeing for Your Art: To prep for the naked pool scene, Joel McHale went on a diet and worked out more intensely.
  • Enforced Method Acting: invoked A completely unintentional case in Season 5's "Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality"; during the scene where Professor Duncan is driving a distraught Britta home and gives her some good advice and helps her out of her existential crisis, Duncan is visibly uncomfortable and awkward when talking to her. Years later, when John Oliver appeared on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Oliver indirectly alluded to this scene and basically said that he wasn't acting there: his disturbed reaction was because he was incredibly intimidated by how excellently Gillian Jacobs was selling an emotional breakdown, and he was internally freaking out over not being able to play off of her well or match her skill in the scene (with him even going on to admit that the scene helped him realize that he actually doesn't enjoy acting much himself since he feels that he's terrible at it).
  • Executive Meddling:
    • On the DVD commentaries for Season 1, the producers discuss some of the various ways in which executives got involved in the process. In particular, the scenes between Annie and Pierce in "Advanced Criminal Law" were gradually supposed to get a lot nastier in tone between the two, but the executives balked and requested that they be watered down somewhat.
    • Originally, NBC execs demanded half of Harmon's writing staff be women. This ended up working out for the better, though, as Harmon ended up appreciating their skill and kept hiring a large number of female writers even after the corporate rule was dropped.
    • After the show was renewed for a shortened fourth season (but moved to a Friday Night Death Slot), Dan Harmon was fired as showrunner.
      • Regarding implications by network brass that he'd stay on as a contractually obligated "executive consulting something or other", Harmon wrote on his blog, "I’m not saying you can’t make a good version of Community without me, but I am definitely saying that you can’t make my version of it unless I have the option of saying 'it has to be like this or I quit' roughly 8 times a day."
    • During the show's run on NBC, the budget was reduced each subsequent season. Hence why the show stopped shooting at outside locations after the first and second seasons.
  • Fake American: Luke Youngblood plays Magnitude ("Pop pop!") as an American for most of the series, though he briefly lapses into his natural accent when the character is revealed to actually be British in Season 5.
  • Fake Nationality:
    • Ben Chang is Chinese, while his actor Ken Jeong is Korean. It's even subtly lampshaded in one episode when Chang reads something in Korean and has to be reminded he's Chinese.
    • Similarly, Abed is ethnically Arabic because his father is from Palestine, while Danny Pudi is ethnically Indian.
  • Franchise Killer: Community's sixth season received the same underwhelming reception the rest of Yahoo Screen's premiere slate did, along with the poorly designed video player saw Yahoo Screen being shut down after less than a year of running. That contributed to the ongoing decline of Yahoo that ended with most of Yahoo being bought by Verizon in 2017.
  • Friday Night Death Slot: It was announced that Community would in fact return for a fourth season... at 8:30 PM on Fridays. Cue fandom terror. And then the show aired in its original Thursday time slot after NBC cancelled a number of their new shows before mid-season.
  • Friendship on the Set: Most of the cast got along very well and remain good friends with each other to this day, with one exception (see Reality Subtext below). Joel McHale and Ken Jeong in particular have often collaborated on stand-up comedy and television work together, usually playing up a snarky Vitriolic Best Buds dynamic.
  • Harpo Does Something Funny: By Dan Harmon's own admission, Donald Glover was basically left to his own devices in several scenes to fill in spaces the writers couldn't fill.
  • Hostility on the Set:
    • The feud between Chevy Chase and Dan Harmon has been well documented. Due to the show's grueling filming schedule and Harmon's inability to nail down scripts leaving the cast & crew standing around until late at night doing nothing while he rewrote the episode, Chase would often storm off set before the end of shoots, which finally came to a head when it made the crew unable to film the planned end tag of "Digital Estate Planning". When Harmon then tried to get the cast & crew to chant "Fuck you Chevy" at the Season 3 wrap party where Chevy's wife and daughter were present, it led to a hate-filled voice mail from Chase to Harmon that Harmon then released publicly on his Harmontown podcast.
    • Not to say Chase isn't above acting this way to just the creator/writers. Chase frequently bullied and made fun of Donald Glover during their tenure on the show, with Glover admitting in 2018 that Chase had made racist jokes to him, among which he said that, "People think you're funnier because you're black." Harmon being fired from the show in Season 4 did little to ease tensions, as Chase was also uncomfortable with his character's increasing bigotry. This culminated in him blowing up on the set of "Intro to Felt Surrogacy" dropping a racial slur in the context of exclaiming he thought that's what the writers were going to start having Pierce say. This resulted in Yvette Nicole Brown threatening to leave the show unless Chase was let go, which resulted in Chase's agents negotiating to have him exit the series immediately. At the end of the day, Pierce ended up being absent for a number of episodes in Season 4 and officially being killed off in Season 5 as a way of permanently retiring the character (outside of Chase recording his puppet dialogue for "Intro to Felt Surrogacy" and shooting a holographic cameo in "Repilot"). Joel McHale backed up this behavior on a podcast, saying that Chase had "good days and tough days" while on set, and admitted that both he and the rest of the cast haven't spoken to Chase in years. Tellingly, when the cast reunited to do a table read during the early part of the COVID-19 Pandemic, it was for an episode in which Pierce is not present in. Chase meanwhile has little to no regrets about his behavior on the show, stating that "he was who he was" when asked about his behavior years later.
    • Harmon wasn't the greatest guy either. His lack of leadership as the show runner often saw filming come to a complete halt as he was unable to finish scripts before shooting, he spent a lot of time abusing Chevy Chase seemingly in an attempt to impress the main cast and in 2018 it was revealed he had sexually harassed writer Megan Ganz, which was one of the factors that led to him being fired at the end of Season 3. Harmon later issued an apology for his behavior, which Ganz accepted.
    • Downplayed, but Dino Stamatopoulos has stated his annoyance with Joel McHale, specifically when the latter expressed concern about Stamatopoulos' teeth.
  • Hypothetical Casting: Dan Harmon wanted to cast Bill Murray as Jeff's father. James Brolin got the role instead.
  • Irony as She Is Cast:
    • Britta, a stoner who's also been seen drunk or hung over at least three times, is played by teetotaler Gillian Jacobs.
    • Troy, who's often depicted as aimless and lazy, and struggles to figure out what he wants to do with his life after Greendale, is played by Donald Glover—who ended up having the single biggest and most successful career of anyone in the main cast. After Community, he became one of the most recognizable entertainers in the world.
    • Annie, prim, rather innocent and bordering on uptight, played by the very body-positive casual nudist Alison Brie.
    • Abed is shown to be a huge nerd for TV, movies and comic books in this show. His actor, Danny Pudi, isn't super knowledgable about film or television, being more of an Obsessive Sports Fan in real life.
    • In the Series Finale, Jeff and Annie both show disdain for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Alison Brie (and Gillian Jacobs) actually ended up directing an episode of Marvel's 616, and has expressed interest in working for them again sometime in the future. Not to mention that both Brie and Jacobs were considered for the role of She-Hulk. Meanwhile, Joel McHale had a small role as a banker in Spider-Man 2, which retroactively became part of the MCU after Spider-Man: No Way Home, which caused McHale to joke that he should've appeared in the aforementioned film.
  • Magnum Opus Dissonance: Season 3's "Digital Estate Planning" was liked by many fans upon its release. By contrast, Dan Harmon wasn't a big fan of it, as he was upset that The Tag had to be changed amongst other things due to his feud with Chevy Chase overshadowing the episode's production.
  • Money, Dear Boy: Despite the critical acclaim and passionate fanbase, Chevy Chase has been very outspoken in his disdain for the show, from calling his decision to join a "mistake", to his run-ins with Dan Harmon, to criticizing sitcoms as "the lowest form of television." He cited the paycheck and his castmates as the only things keeping him showing up, though considering his Hostility on the Set towards everyone involved, it's clear it wasn't entirely reciprocated.
  • Missing Trailer Scene: The preview for the season 2 finale "A Fistful of Paintballs" features Starburns doing a Crucified Hero Shot.
  • Mutually Fictional: With Cougar Town. Danny Pudi cameoed in the second-season finale of Cougar Town and it's pretty clear that he's playing Abed. That means Abed lied about lying about being an extra on Cougar Town, although the details are a little different than he described in "Critical Film Studies". In Cougar Town, one character referenced buying the Community box set.
  • Newbie Boom: The series was added to Netflix in April 2020. This added tons of new fans virtually over night and it was in Netflix's Top 10 watched shows for awhile. This has generated renewed interest in a movie.
  • No Export for You: The Season 5 DVD set launched a week early in Europe, but without any of the bonus features featured on the release. Even more shockingly, is that the extras were not only advertised, but it took complaints from confused customers for websites like Amazon to alter the product listing on their websites.
  • The Other Darrin:
  • Out of Holiday Episode: When the fourth Season was delayed, that year's Thanksgiving ("Cooperative Escapism In Familial Relations") and Christmas ("Intro To Knots") episodes aired in March and April respectively.
  • Out of Order:
    • Unconfirmed, but in Season 1 episode 17 has Jeff say to Leonard "I talked to your son on family day" but family day isn't until the next episode
    • "Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts" and "Contemporary Impressionists" were aired in that order, but swapped on the DVD because this is the order in which they are meant to be watched, which explains why in "Contemporary Impressionists" the study group welcome each other back from their break.
    • "Digital Estate Planning" was aired after the study group's expulsion from Greendale, but the end tag had Troy and Abed talking in the study room, and no one acted oddly to their presence. The reason for this discrepancy is that an end tag was written for the episode that did not take place in the study room, but Chevy Chase did not want to film it, therefore a new one was written. However, the episode itself also does not make much sense in the timeline of the show as in the previous episode they learned that Chang had replaced the Dean with the Doppel Deaner, and yet the Study Group decided to have this side adventure instead. Possibly justified as it involved the contents of Cornelius Hawthorne's will, and therefore Pierce's inheritance, which probably could not be delayed.
    • During "Competitive Ecology", Pierce offhandedly mentions how all of his study group friends know that he had sex with Eartha Kitt in an airplane bathroom, despite not ever bringing it up beforehand. This episode airs before Remedial Chaos Theory, which has this particular story used as a Running Gag.
  • Playing Against Type: Most of Chevy Chase's most well-known characters are generally smooth, suave and the smartest person in the room. Pierce Hawthorne... not so much.
  • Post-Script Season: The fifth season saw the cast end up failing their goals and back in Greendale.
  • Production Posse: With Channel101:
    • Abed is based on Channel101 star Abed Gheith, who Dan Harmon pushed for to get the role.
    • Fellow Channel 101 alumni Sona Panos, Dave Seger and David B. Lyons worked on the series under Harmon.
    • Chevy Chase, John Oliver and Joel McHale all had cameo roles in Episode 9 of Harmon's Channel 101 series Water and Power.
    • The Dean Craig Pelton and Professor Ian Duncan are named after Channel 101 stars Dean Pelton and Ian Duncan.
    • Abed's Britta, Abed's Annie and Abed's Abed are all played by 101ers (Jenny Flack, Kelsy Abbott and Sandeep Parikh, respectively.)
    • The Cast attended the Channel 101 "Channy" awards: Footage here and here.
    • Additionally, the other members and acquaintances of Donald Glover's sketch comedy group Derrick Comedy have a cameo helping Pierce write jokes in "Romantic Expressionism". (D.C. Pierson had previously appeared in "Investigative Journalism".)
  • Queer Character, Queer Actor: The pansexual Dean Pelton is played by the openly queer Jim Rash.
  • Real Song Theme Tune: "At Least It Was Here" by The 88.
  • Reality Subtext: The entire main cast got along extremely well and became very close friends with one another... except for Chevy Chase, who frequently alienated those he was working with on the show. This meant the Study Group's general animosity towards Pierce and his behavior came from a very real place.
  • Recast as a Regular: Two of its Final Season Casting.
    • Keith David narrated the Season 3 episode "Pillows And Blankets" before taking the role of Season 6 cast regular Elroy Patashnik.
    • Paget Brewster appears as IT administrator Debra Chambers in Season 5 episode "Analysis of Cork-Based Networking" before appearing as Season 6 regular Frankie Dart. This is subtly lampshaded when Frankie notes that she attempted to contact the IT Administrator in one episode, but that her calls constantly keep going to voicemail.
  • Referenced by...: El Goonish Shive: NP: "An NPC by any other name", the naming of the Cleric has tons of shout-outs running through Ellen's head◊, with the end of the fourth-from-last to the beginning of the third-from-last being:
    Troy Abed J(???)
    Britta
  • Screwed by the Network:
    • The firing of Dan Harmon after season 3, the explanation of which didn't become public knowledge until 2018.
    • Cutting Seasons 4 & 5 down to 13 episodes, so the seasons never managed to build any momentum
    • The show's cancellation at the end of Season 5 in the face of the long standing fan campaign for 6 seasons.
    • NBC repeatedly cutting the show's budget - with the move to Yahoo Screen with Season 6, it was noted that they were able to shoot outside for the first timenote  since the show's second season.
    • Then Yahoo ended up deeming the series a financial failure and canceled it after the sixth season, writing it along with two other shows off their assets in a total loss of $42 million.
  • Separated-at-Birth Casting: Jeff and Shirley's respective time-shifted actors, Jacob Bertrand and Taylar Hollomon, both have passing resemblance to Joel McHale and Yvette Nicole Brown.
  • Star-Making Role: For Joel McHale, Donald Glover, Alison Brie, Yvette Nicole Brown, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, and Jim Rash. Their acting resume started to snowball after appearing in this show.
  • Troubled Production: As the show continued on there came a lot of reports of behind-the-scenes trouble.
    • Chevy Chase was rather up front and vocal about his distaste for the show and had a rocky relationship with Dan Harmon. He admitted he didn't have much interest in being on a sitcom, as those tended to have the most grueling schedules. Filming in the study room, covering each cast member around the table, would lead to sixteen to twenty hour days. While Chase was the most vocal, numerous other cast and crew were stressed out by Harmon's behavior, including one female staff writer who felt sexually harassed by him (Harmon later apologized, which she accepted).
    • The show had a passionate fanbase but the ratings gradually diminished and the show was frequently over budget, which exacerbated NBC's relationship with the show. Episodes started filming with unfinished scripts and was rewritten on a day-to-day basis. This resulted in mismanaged production scheduling (one claim was that several sets were lit, staffed and staged to facilitate one joke featuring multiple Cutaway Gags). Harmon's insistence on having big, expensive episodes with a cinematic look while also mocking the network in the show itself took Biting-the-Hand Humor a little too literally.
    • In season four Harmon was fired as a culmination of all these issues, and the continued under new show runners & writers for a half-season worth of episodes to premiere mid season. Harmon was rehired for season five for another half season of episodes, scrambling to accommodate the events of season four into his plans while also retooling the show beyond the study group. The show was eventually picked up to be a Yahoo exclusive for a sixth season, but by then half the cast had left for various personal reasons.
  • Uncredited Role: Owen Wilson had an uncredited appearance in the episode "Investigative Journalism".
  • Underage Casting: A minor example. Britta Perry (born 1980) is played by Gillian Jacobs (born 1982).
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Patrick Stewart, John Cleese and Fred Willard were in the running for the part of Pierce Hawthorne before the casting of Chevy Chase. Willard would eventually guest star as Pierce in Abed's mind during the Season 4 premiere.
    • Jeff's last name was originally going to be "Crocker", before being changed.
    • As written in Ability over Appearance above, Annie was originally envisioned as an Asian character. Annie Kim was created in Season 3 as a Development Gag. Likewise, Shirley and Troy were originally written as Caucasians.
    • Troy and Pierce were originally going to be frequently paired together for various adventures, but after Donald Glover and Danny Pudi's real-life friendship began to translate into comedic chemistry (as well as Chevy Chase's Hostility on the Set behavior towards Glover), the show settled into the signature Troy/Abed dynamic instead.
    • It was intended for there to be a supporting character named Coach Bartel, played by Gary Anthony Williams, who was the head of both the Sports and Theatre departments at Greendale. This was scrapped, a character named Coach Bogner being the head of the Sports deparment and another named Sean Garrity becoming the Theatre professor.
    • The statue in the Greendale courtyard was originally supposed to be Mark Hamill, but he declined (and apparently very graciously, according to Harmon).
    • The show was originally supposed to tell a self-contained story spanning four seasons with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Harmon's firing for the fourth season destroyed that, so he ended up having to spend most of the fifth season resetting the status quo in order to resume the story where he left off.
    • In "Repilot" it is ultimately a hologram of Pierce that gets Jeff to abandon the law suit against Greendale. However, the script used at the table read instead featured the in-universe reveal that Star-Burns was alive, and he would serve the same purpose as the hologram; this was likely the plan if Chevy Chase hadn't agreed to shoot the cameo.
    • Ray Liotta was Dan Harmon and Chris McKenna's first choice for Buzz Hickey in the fifth season. Harmon revealed at 2014 PaleyFest that he was in several phone calls with Liotta, but ended up eventually casting Jonathan Banks.
    • Dan Harmon had wanted to do more with Rachel in the show, as he found that she was one of the few parts of Season 4 that he genuinely liked. Outside of two appearances in Season 5 though, Rachel never appeared on the show again, due to Brie Larson's schedule getting too busy for her to commit to the show.
    • Shirley was supposed to reappear as a regular cast member for Season 6, but Yvette Nicole Brown had to drop out to take care of her father as his health was beginning to fail. She does make guest appearances in the season's premiere and finale episodes however.
    • Alison Brie had expressed interested in seeing Annie hook up with Professor Duncan in Season 1, due to their similar personalities. This never came to fruition due to John Oliver's disinterest in being a series regular, as well as how uncomfortable a Teacher/Student Romance with such a big age gap would've been.
  • Word of God: Abed's "quirks" were, according to this link intended to be some form of autism based on Harmon's own Self-Diagnosis on internet tests, although "Competitive Ecology" has him imply that he is also face-blind.
  • Writer Revolt:
    • The NBC mandated "Green Week" was lambasted by having the Dean & Enviromental Club waste materials in an attempt to promote Greendale's own Green Week.
    • In an example of the actors revolting, Joel McHale led the cast in getting Dan Harmon rehired for the fifth season.
  • Write What You Know: According to The Other Wiki, Community is based on Dan Harmon's own community college days, and Jeff is based on his younger, more self-centered self.
  • Write Who You Know: Dan Harmon modeled Jeff Winger and Britta Perry after himself and an ex-girlfriend, respectively.
  • Written by Cast Member: Jim Rash wrote the Season 4 episode "Basic Human Anatomy".
  • Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Apparently numerous episodes would start filming with just an outline and the cast and crew would only get the actual script for the day several hours in. While the cast was game for whatever twist was thrown their way this did lead to a deal of uncertainty with what exactly was going to happen within the episode, let alone the show in general.

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