Part I: Summary and Review of NBC's Community, the last 37 seconds.

Incomplete Thought: ...and that's why the last 37 seconds of NBC's Community are the sharpest, smartest, and funniest 37 seconds of network television in the last, oh let's say, decade...

***

According to Wikipedia and basic deductive reasoning based on already public information, Community is an American comedy series on NBC. More colloquially, however, it's that show on after The Office that stars Joel McHale (that guy from The Soup) and is produced by Dan Harmon (that guy behind The Sarah Silverman Program). Only two episodes have aired as of this writing, and while the critical reception and ratings have been good, there is no telling of it's broadcast future. Situational comedies and their brothers and sisters in the written-television format are a dying breed, easily replaceable by cheaper and often-but-not-always more entertaining "reality" television. But whatever the future holds for Community, the last 37 seconds of the second episode have - at least for this viewer - cemented its place among the small-scale-model Parthenon of Funniest First-Run TV Series of the Aughts. Now there's an award trophy.

The genius of this half-minute - inserted as a closing-credits scene not linked directly to the main plot of the episode - is located in its combination of relevancy and density. Everything from the staging to the dialogue and back again and in between retains a perfect appropriateness and resonance, doing so in about as little of a space of time as one could think a story could be told.*

Let's review the action of the clip, first.

As the scene opens, two guys sit loungingly on a dated couch in the student lounge of a typical, Californian community college. The one on the left, Abed, is the personification of a multiethnic American, an apparent Caucasian/South Asian mix; the one of the left, Troy, is your standard, non-threatening middle-class black guy. They sit close enough that we know they are not strangers, and so we wait for the inevitable dialogue between friends who are studying together yet would rather do anything but.

A second in, Abed - played with brilliant and perpetual energy by Danny Pudi - spontaneously begins a surprisingly good beat box. He doesn't do it for show or for attention, but more for what appears to be self-entertainment. The moment was right.

Troy, who knows he is cooler than Abed but likes the guy nonetheless, is taken by the rhythmic quality of his new friend's beat. And after only a moment's hesitation, he launches into a hodgepodge Spanish rap, the lyrics of which pluck random bits of vocabulary from what could only be the first unit of the introductory course textbook.

"Donde esta la biblioteca? Me llamo T-Bone la arana discoteca," he raps with increasing enthusiasm and physical energy. As the words flow effortlessly out, an English translation appears and disappears on the screen, neatly delay-timed to his verse:

Where is the library

My name is T-Bone

the disco spider.

Abed rises to the challenge and picks up on his couchmate's last line, echoing the established rhythm thanks in part to Troy's willingness to sustain the same beat-box beat. Abed, however, is not simply mimicking; he punches out a new rhyme scheme to the very same rhythm, making this rap as much his as it is Troy's:

"Discoteca, muneca, la biblioteca, es en la bigote grande, perro manteca."

Now, if I may use the phrase, Troy is "feeling it," thrilled by both the beat and his partner's skill. He becomes more animated, his right hand directing both the scansion and the speed of the words and phrases he is now pulling from the page in front of him. He honors Abed's mirroring technique, and launches into...

"Manteca, bigote, gigante, pequeno, cabeza es nieve, cerveza es bueno."

By this fourth verse, it's apparent to all that this is no longer a chance bit of linguistic luck but a capital-M Moment, a discovery. It's not a battle, but a collaboration wherein each participant pushes the other beyond where he may have stopped on his own. Abed knows exactly where to resume, and Troy allows rap to finally emerge as what it has always been for him: a total kinesthetic experience, mind and body unified for one expressive purpose.

"Buenos dias, me gusta papas frias. El bigote de la cabra es Cameron Diaz."

With Abed's excitement marked by his increase of volume, Troy complements the excitement of the climax. He pantomimes the most commonly associated movements of the DJ - scratching the record with his right while bracing his headphones with his left - all the while improvising an impressive scratch-echo-repeat of "cabra," Abed's longest and most punctuated word so far. And so it is because of this awareness of his partner that Troy knows when to blow it all up, to demarcate the end of that which has progressed naturally to its own end. When Abed finds "Cameron Diaz" as the comic parallel to his opening "Buenos dias," his partner vocalizes the sound of an explosion, which contains its own denouement and resolution. And as the intensity flows out of Troy's coup de grace, the pair asserts their success:

"Yeah, boi. Boi," Abed declares, hitting each word with force.

"Yeah," Troy concurs.

"What," Abed asks rhetorically to whomever is listening, only to remind them all that "it's 2009."

At with that, Troy confirms it's true: "Word."

[End Scene] & [End of Part I]

* Though one wonders how long Hemingway took to deliver his genre-introducing flash fiction wonder. A safe, conservative estimate would be about five seconds, I'd guess.

To be continued...

...by Part II: Analysis and Criticism of NBC's Community, the last 37 seconds. Stay tuned.