Community/Recap/S3/E10 Regional Holiday Music

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
< Community‎ | Recap‎ | S3


Annie's pretty young. We try not to sexualize her.


It was almost like being on ecstasy, only instead of having pointless conversations and dancing like idiots--wait, it was exactly like being on ecstasy!
Britta, on being in Glee club

As the study group tells each other their plans for Christmas (none of which involve each other), they (and the rest of the cafeteria) are interrupted by the new Glee Club (the old one having died in a bus crash) singing their usual mashups. However, this time the Glee Club is interrupted by Chang, who serves them with a cease-and-desist letter for singing copyrighted songs on behalf of ASCAP (who found out after receiving an anonymous notification from Jeff), causing them to immediately panic and suffer a collective nervous breakdown.

Dean Pelton and Glee Club Director Mr. Radison (who prefers being called "Mr. Rad") try to get the study group to fill in for Glee Club at the Christmas Pageant, but the group (led by Jeff) declines. Concerned that the group is growing apart, Abed later goes to see Mr. Rad, who convinces him that joining Glee and doing the Pageant will stave off the growing darkness and make everything brighter ("Glee"). Enthusiasm for Glee Club spreads like a virus, going first from Abed to Troy. Abed convinces him in rap that he can celebrate Christmas even though he's a Jehovah's Witness ("Jehovah's Secret Witness") and then Troy and Abed change the study room and get Pierce to join through his Baby Boomer vanity ("Baby Boomer Santa"). Pierce then gets Shirley via a group of cute children singing about not knowing the meaning of Christmas ("Happy Birthday, Jesus!"). Annie gets Jeff by singing a seductive song about not understanding Christmas ("Teach Me How to Understand Christmas"). Finally, only Britta is left until she finds Jeff and he starts singing at her. Within a day, the entire study group decides to do the Christmas pageant.

Backstage on the day of the Pageant, Mr. Rad tells Abed (playing the King) that the group won't be filling in for Glee Club for just Christmas: Glee Club is forever. To stop Glee from taking over their lives, Abed switches roles with Britta, who promptly ruins the show (because she's the worst) and causes Mr. Rad to have a breakdown and accidentally confess that he caused the last Glee Club's bus crash. Abed concludes that forcing things to be bright just made the darkness underneath even darker.

Back at his apartment, Abed watches the Inspector Spacetime Christmas Special alone, until he hears the rest of the study group singing Christmas carols outside his door. He lets them in and they all sit down to watch together.


The Community episode "Regional Holiday Music" provides examples of:

Abed: Maybe forcing everything to be bright just makes the darkness underneath even darker.

  • Critical Research Failure: Invoked with "Santa smoked a lot of acid."
    • The entirety of "Baby Boomer Santa" is a summary of the history of the second half of the twentieth century as sung by two people who appear to have a rather shaky grasp of said history.

Abed and Troy: "And when the Commies gave the polio to Doris Day/ Santa helped the Beatles chase McCarthy away!"

Jeff: Look, eventually you hit a point of diminishing returns on the sexiness.

Annie: What's a deminiminmeghh?

    • Britta is also in tights during the performance.
  • Fetish Fuel / Fetish Retardant: See above.
  • Fridge Horror: If one were so inclined, it's entirely possible to hear the ever-increasing-in-volume Glee-style sung musical cues (especially the eerie number at the end of the episode) as being the ghosts of the original murdered Glee club. "We'll see you after regionals..." indeed.
  • Friendship Moment: Everyone comes over to spend the holiday with Abed at the end of the episode.
  • Funny Background Event: During the Christmas pageant, Pierce is clearly out-of-step with the other members of the group (and does some of the wrong moves as well).
    • During the Glee club's breakdown, Chang can be seen laughing at them.
    • Towards the end of "Jehovah's Secret Witness", Annie can clearly be seen poking her head through the curtains and watching Troy and Abed rap.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: The lyrics to "Teach Me How to Understand Christmas" is all this. Then the last line (see Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion and Intercourse with You) takes that crap and WAVES IT IN THE RADAR'S FACE.
  • Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: The effect of Glee Club.
  • Glurge Addict: Mr. Rad is one of these. A particularly psychotic and murderous one, as it turns out.
  • Go, Ye Heroes, Go and Die: Mr. Rad is not a very good motivational speaker:

Mr. Rad: Your best won't be good enough. And ten times your best? It will be so bad, I will yell at you!

  • Hollywood Tone Deaf: Britta but only during the Christmas Pageant. It's averted at the end of the episode when the group collectively sings a carol to Abed in his apartment. She's an average singer but not terrible.
    • It can't help that during the pageant she's singing "the song of her heart", which doesn't necessarily have a set tune or even notes, because it's basically just whatever spills out of her mouth.
  • Holding Hands: Final shot of the study group has Annie and Abed doing this. Whether it is platonic or romantic is left to the viewer to decide.
  • Hulk Speak: By the end of her song, Annie's Baby Talk devolves into this.

You smart, me dumb/Help pwetty have fun!

  • Hypocritical Heartwarming: While the study group is often quick to poke fun and mock Britta, Mr. Rad quickly learns that they will not tolerate anyone else calling her "the worst."
  • Hypocritical Humor: Shirley considers Troy's family's refusal to observe the Christmas holiday in accordance with their beliefs as Jehovah's Witnesses as "severe"... then reveals that her holiday plans and 'gifts' apparently involve giving Annie (apparently among "the more persuadable of her Jewish friends") a surprise visit from her pastor to try and convert her.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun:

Mr. Rad: I thought I told you to call me 'Mr. Rad.' Or Cory. Just don't call me late to dinner. Unless you're serving Brussels sprouts.

  • Intercourse with You: Boopy-doopy-doop-boop, SEX!
  • Invisible Backup Band: Lampshaded and played straight as part of the Glee parody. Abed asks how Mr. Rad's piano is still playing after he starts dancing, and Pierce nervously asks if anyone else can see the bearded stranger sitting behind the piano in the study room (and yes, he's the spitting image of the Living Prop pianist in Glee).
  • Jerkass: While the original Glee club is experiencing it's breakdown, Chang can be visibly seen laughing at them.
  • Leitmotif: Glee-style musical cues can be heard at significant moments throughout the show, and start to become a lot more prominent and overpowering, going on to replace the typical musical score, as the Glee attitude gradually takes over the show and characters.
  • Look Behind You!: Mr. Rad's contingency plan.

Look: Kings of Leon!

Annie: I'll be at the movies with my bubbie.
Troy: You're not taking both of them?
Annie: [Confused] Well... one of them's dead.
Troy: [Even more confused] ... What.

  • Phrase Catcher: Mr. Rad says to Britta, "You are the worst!"
  • Playing a Tree: Britta is cast a Christmas tree in the pageant.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Mr. Rad is given an introduction by the Dean, despite the study group having previously worked, off screen, with him.
  • Running Gag: Pierce asking what regionals are.
  • Serious Business: The Glee Club. Upon receiving a cease-and-desist order, the second Glee Club suffers a collective mental breakdown so severe that the study group's initial jubilation turns into anxiety at being caught. The study group gradually becomes obsessed with the Glee Club as each member is brainwashed, thanks to Mr. Rad's extreme devotion, which extends to the point of murdering the first club. Lampshaded by Britta, who points out that the small-scale nature of things makes the fact that her friends are practically being brainwashed into joining the Glee Club somehow even more terrifying.

Glee Club Member: My soul is dead! [Stabs himself in the hand with a fork]

    • Also 'regionals' -- once you're in the Glee Club, you cannot shut up about regionals.
  • Sexy Santa Dress: Annie wears one to seduce Jeff into joining Glee Club.
  • Shaped Like Itself: Upon being told that the Glee Club had been "this close" to regionals before the letter:

Pierce: What the hell are regionals?!
Dean: They were this close, Pierce!

Jeff: My favourite holiday tradition is trimming the Hellraiser.

    • The opening number of the pageant features ParaParaParadise dance moves.
  • So Bad It's Good: The Inspector Spacetime Christmas Special has this appeal to Troy and Abed in-universe:

Troy: That sounds terrible. I wanna watch it twice.

  • Spontaneous Choreography: Occurs when Abed and Mr. Rad sing "Glee," for later songs participants may have had time to practice.
  • Stepford Smiler: Mr. Rad is clearly hiding a lot of unpleasantness underneath his overly cheerful exterior. The members of the study group also become this as they get sucked into the Glee club.
  • Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: "Teach Me How to Understand Christmas" has an ABCCB rhyming scheme. Then comes the last verse:

Brain hurty understandy Christmas,
Mistletoe for eaty taste good?
You smarty, me dumb!
Help pwetty, have fun!
Boopy doopy doop, boop, sex.