When hearing that Community’s latest promo was a spoof of Mad Men, the first two thoughts that came to mind was the slow silhouette of Jeff Winger falling from a building, or something involving Annie, as Alison Brie is a pretty notable common thread between the two series. But Community took it one step better, not by spoofing Mad Men so much as spoofing the relatively useless and overly teasy Mad Men episode promos, which typically feature a series of snippets so brief, they offer no real clues as to what’s coming up next other than that people will be saying things, sometimes looking tense.
Just for reference, for those of you who don’t watch Mad Men, here’s a randomly selected episode promo to demonstrate what I’m talking about:
I’ve complained about the maddeningly vague Mad Men promos before, so I’m positively gleeful that Community would take a jab at the series, and Greendale-ify it in their own way, with lines like “You staged a robot fight?!” and “I didn’t kill him” — lines probably unlikely to be heard in an actual Mad Men promo — and random “Oh.” “Ooh,” “No,” “Yeah,” and “What?” thrown in for maximum vagueness. The promo tells us almost nothing about the new season other than that there will be characters and conversations… also a staged robot fight (possibly).
The promo caps it off with a great parody of Don Draper (in Jeff Winger form) and his glass of scotch:
Is it January 2 yet?!
Not quite, but fortunately, NBC hasn’t been shy in reminding us that Community is on the way! We’ve seen a few other trailers in recent weeks, including this one, which takes a Christmas animated special approach to reminding us that Jeff finished school and returned to his profession as a lawyer…
Way to lay out the schedule Annie! Also, way to vomit piles of presents Troy.
