Scoop: 'Community' pulls a 'Rudolph'

When Community ingénue Alison Brie (Annie) says, “It’s going to be a very special Christmas episode,” she means it. The sophomore comedy is officially going through with plans to produce a holiday eppy in stop-motion animation like the old Rankin/Bass classics.

“When I found out,” Brie adds, “I fell in love with the show all over again!”

She wasn’t the only one.

“It is so hard for me not to tell everybody I know about it,” exclaims Danny Pudi (Aped). “The minute we read that script, I was over-the-moon excited. It’s like that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special that you see every Christmas. But in true Community fashion, it’s also a little subversive and a little dark.”

Ironically, series creator Dan Harmon—who floated the idea in a NYMag.com interview over the summer—admits, “It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do but, I never anticipated having the ability to do it,” he admits. But “Jeff Gaspin at NBC woke up one morning and thought Community should do an animated episode. I was like, ‘Well, that’s weird, because that’s the kind of stuff I’m usually suggesting and guys like him veto.’”

Stoked, he and writer/cast member Dino Stamatopoulos, who plays Starburns, got right to work. “Holidays are a big deal at Greendale. We like to go all out,” he teases, adding that the college “is really just some weird Shakespearean purgatory, like some magical forest where anything can happen if you just lift up the right rock.”

So what do we know about the instaclassic? “I can confirm that we are not yellow [like The Simpsons], and we do not have a talking dog [a la Family Guy] in the episode,” Joel McHale (Jeff) reveals. “But all your favorite Greendalians will be going animated.”

Oh, and one more thing… “If there is anything that can top the paintball episode, it might be the Halloween episode or the Christmas episode,” he suggests. And I believe him. How about you? Weigh in below. (Reporting by Carrie Bell)