Top 10 4th Wall Breaks in Community

As the study group gathers for the day, things get rolling as usual: banter, a couple juvenile jokes, an appearance from the dean - the typical nuts and bolts. After Abed drops a couple of his usual musings about his fellow classmates, Jeff points out that it’s a little uncomfortable the way he talks about them like they’re characters from a TV show. Abed explains that it’s his thing - but also agrees that it could get overused and decides to “lay low for an episode”. Community constantly subverts tropes and expectations, and no one does it better in-show than Abed (also, get used to that in this list. It is, after all, his gimmick).

Traditions are important to Abed. So, when his mother cancels their annual Christmas get-together Abed suffers a small break from reality. He imagines that he and all of his friends are a part of a claymation Christmas special. His friends are concerned and they stage an intervention, playing along with his delusions in hopes that he’ll work his way out of it. Of course, what the audience sees really IS a claymation Christmas special, with full musical numbers and cartoon timing. Less a true fourth wall break and more meta humor, it still plays with the idea of the show functioning as a show, not reality.

Like Abed’s break with reality, in a later season episode Jeff has a similar crisis. In this episode, the study group are all GI Joe characters with classic Joe sounding names: Buzzkill! Tight Ship! Wingman! And, yes, Fourth Wall! The fourth wall of THIS reality, however, is broken when Jeff finally starts to admit that what’s happening isn’t real and comes to terms with the fact that he was afraid of being 40 years old. He realizes that they’re all just in a fantasy set to an old childhood favourite cartoon, whereupon he wakes up in the hospital surrounded by his friends.

Britta returns in year two feeling mortified about how she and Jeff left things at the end of the last year. However, she quickly finds herself a feminist icon around school. Jeff, feeling threatened by her new popularity, decides he has to find a way to one-up her. Meanwhile, Abed’s been observing the shenanigans and while at first he finds it boring, he later leans in to accelerate their relationship plot. He then ‘cancels’ the episode when things get too heated. Jeff snaps and starts mocking him for not being able to tell the difference between real-life and TV. This is a low blow, and Abed explains he can tell the difference: unlike life, TV has to make sense: [broll "In life we have this. We have you."]

Shirley’s religious beliefs are never taken very seriously. In an attempt to win more people over, she decides she should make a film about Jesus and what makes Christianity cool. She asks Abed, who knows lots about film, for input. He does some research and decides he likes the source material but thinks it needs a more postmodern direction. What ensues is Abed’s own messianic rise as a filmmaker with a cult following. But during Abed’s pitch, Shirley makes it clear that she dislikes the idea - and at that moment, Abed has an epiphany as he stares into the camera: [broll “This IS the movie”].

By the end of season two, it’s become clear that Community is not your average comedy. Things go off the rails in big, messy, wacky ways all the time. Nothing about life at Greendale is normal (or boring). However, this year the gang is committed to being less crazy - and what better way to prove that than a huge musical number detailing their past shortcomings and declaring their newly found normalcy. Self-aware and with a small fourth wall break when Annie and Jeff announces to the audience their pending intimacy, it’s about as low-key and normal as a purple elephant … which is, of course, the point.

When Troy and Abed start sleeping at the school, they aren’t about to take half-measures. They decide to turn the study room and adjoining halls into the ultimate fort. However, the two start to develop different visions for what the fort should be: blanket or pillow. A bitter rivalry is born between the two friends with opposing sides clashing. When shots are fired, the coziest of civil wars begins. With the feud unresolved by the end of the episode, the two factions part ways - but not before Abed pauses long enough to stare into the camera and prepare the audience for Part Two of the pillow fort saga [broll “To be continued!”]

The main plot to this episode doesn’t matter at all. What we’re interested in, for the sake of this entry, is what’s happening in the background. Throughout the season two episode “The Psychology of Letting Go” there is an unaddressed subplot with Abed, a pregnant lady, and her boyfriend. As the episode progresses, we see Abed befriending the pregnant lady, a fight with the boyfriend, the lady going into labor, and finally the delivery in the back of a van. It’s a very show-within-a-show moment. If only the most plot-worthy points of our day had their own fun, consistent, little sub-stories.

There comes a time in many TV shows when writers (for time or budgetary reasons) have to cut back on set and/or cast for an episode. These episodes are known as “bottle episodes,” where characters are “bottled up” together in a restricted setting (often one room) and there hash out an issue for the duration of said episode. Results in quality vary. Abed, ever the astute TV viewer, can see one coming a mile away. As tensions mount after another of Annie’s pens are stolen, he warns the others that they’re heading towards a bottle episode. And, lo’, that’s just where they end up.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

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Episode Foreshadowing

Latvian Independence Day

Theme Song Interruption

Abed on Cougar Town

When we start off the episode, the show seems set up to go in a certain, predictable way as we follow Jeff Winger into his first day at Greendale. But as we meet the study group (in particular Abed) the expected tropes are gradually picked apart, reexamined, and compared to multiple other scripted performances - which is spot on. The group is off to a rough start. But when Jeff gives one of his (soon to be classic) speeches, the group starts to come together … and then calls him out on his bullshit. Weirdly freed from the constraints of their preset cliches, the show is ready to go in any direction - which it soon does.