“TV’s the best dad there is.” Community has a complicated history, but its dedicated fan base has turned the series into a cult favorite.
The sitcom, created by Dan Harmon, aired its first five seasons on NBC from 2009 to 2014. The broadcast network later declined to renew the show for a sixth season, leaving the team to search for a new home. After Hulu passed up the chance to save the show, it eventually landed at Yahoo! Screen for its final season, which aired in 2015.
Set at a fictional community college in Colorado, the series focuses on Jeff Winger (Joel McHale), a recently disbarred lawyer who was fired for lying about having an Ivy League education. When he’s forced to obtain a degree from Greendale Community College, he stumbles upon a study group of quirky outcasts who soon become family. Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Yvette Nicole Brown, Alison Brie, Donald Glover, Jim Rash and Ken Jeong rounded out the ensemble cast.
Comedy legend Chevy Chase starred alongside the Community crew for four seasons, announcing in November 2012 that he was leaving the show amid uproar about his use of the N-word on set. Six years later, Glover opened up about the National Lampoon’s Vacation actor’s frequent controversial comments.
“I just saw Chevy as fighting time — a true artist has to be OK with his reign being over,” the Solo star told The New Yorker in March 2018. “I can’t help him if he’s thrashing in the water. But I know there’s a human in there somewhere — he’s almost too human.”
Despite the scandals brought upon the series, viewers still have a soft spot for Community, even going so far as to create a social media movement begging for #SixSeasonsAndAMovie. Harmon and the cast reunited via Zoom in May 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic, and while they gave no firm answers about a potential movie spinoff, they each gushed over the experiences they shared together.
“I think we were lucky to realize that it was special while we were doing it, which you don’t always know it’s the good times when the good times are happening. I just get more sentimental as the years go on,” Jacobs said at the time. “It gave me personally that real-life feeling of feeling like part of a group in a way that I don’t think I’d ever really felt like before.”
Two years later, fans finally got their wish. McHale confirmed in September 2022 that a film was in the works with the original Community cast, tweeting a photo of a white background with blue text reading, “… And a movie.” The project will debut on Peacock, and the streaming platform also acquired non-exclusive rights to all six seasons of the series.
“‘Six seasons and a movie’ started out as a cheeky line from Community’s early seasons and quickly ignited a passionate fan movement for this iconic, hilarious and cool (cool, cool) NBC comedy,” read a statement from Susan Rovner, chairman of entertainment content at NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. “We’re incredibly grateful that 15 years later, we are able to deliver fans this promised movie and can’t wait to get to work with Dan Harmon, Andrew Guest, Joel McHale, Sony and our partners at UTV to continue this epic comedy for Peacock audiences.”
Scroll down to learn more about where the cast of the Community is now!
