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. In that meeting he said, 'Hey I love your show. It reminds me of 'Family Guy.' You should do an animated episode.'"
Harmon's interpretation of this comment was that Gaspin wasn't actually a big fan of his show. "I took that to mean he wasn't very familiar," Harmon said, but it didn't really matter: the guy in charge suggested an animated episode, so now they had an excuse to do what they'd always wanted to do anyway. As Harmon put it, "We just kind of thought we could take advantage of that, because there was a lot of tumult in the empire and the guy in charge did technically say, 'You should do an animated episode.'"
A lovely holiday gem
According to Harmon, the showrunners went up to NBC executives and basically said, "Your boss said we should do an animated episode, so we're gonna take a whack at it." Not long after, a classic Christmas episode was born. It's an episode that's funny, yet dark, yet heartwarming at the same time. Despite being animated, it's still a far cry from the tone of a "Family Guy" episode, which is usually a lot more aimless with its pacing and a lot more crass with its sense of humor.
Still, the episode's got a lot in common with the season 9 "Family Guy" Christmas special, "Road to the North Pole." Just as Abed goes on a journey to the North Pole to find the meaning of Christmas, "Family Guy" has Stewie and Brian travel to the North Pole to find out if Santa actually exists. (Spoiler alert: he does.) The two specials actually aired within a few days of each other, and they each feature multiple musical set-pieces and a surprisingly wholesome ending. They both center around its characters being disillusioned with the magic of Christmas, but rediscovering that magic in the end.
Although most "Community" fans would agree that the six-season live-action sitcom is the superior show to the never-ending "Family Guy," it seems like the two shows aren't completely different after all. At the very least, they'll always have this fun little connection between them. An NBC Chairman's off-hand reference to "Family Guy" helped "Community" create one of the best Christmas specials ever made, and we should always be thankful for that.