Series creator Dan Harmon is ready to take Community to a whole ‘nother level, quite literally in fact.  Season 2’s Chistmas episode is going to be entirely stop motion animated, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer-style.  Earlier this summer Harmon shared his excitement over the possibily of making such a unique episode.  “It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do but, I never anticipated having the ability to do it,” he told NYMag.  “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.”

Upon hearing news of the holiday surprise, a number of the cast members also couldn’t contain their enthusiasm for it.  “It is so hard for me not to tell everybody I know about it,” says Danny Pudi (Abed). “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.”  Alison Brie (Annie) said, “When I found out, I fell in love with the show all over again!”  Star Joel McHale (Jeff) revealed, “I can confirm that we are not yellow [ie. The Simpsons], and we do not have a talking dog [ie. Family Guy] in the episode.  But all your favorite Greendalians will be going animated.”

Can you imagine an animated Senor Chang and Starburns?  It’s going to be great.  In related news, you should know that Community also has planned a top-secret, big budget Halloween special featuring–you guessed it–zombies!  “Knowing too much about this particular plot would ruin it, but I promise it’s an awesome, one-off crazy conceptual episode with plot points and effects that are more familiar to horror film fans than our show’s fans,” says Harmon.

Community returns Thursday (9/23) at 8PM on NBC.

Update: Starting at 7PM ET (one hour prior to the season premiere) the main characters of the show will communicate with one another in a conversation using Twitter.  This “Twittersode” is being described as a “prequel” scene to the premiere ep.  According to EW,  “they’ll make arrangements for their first meet-up of the year, as well as preparations for their first class, Anthropology 101.”  A class we all know will be led by the one and only Betty White.  You have two options to watch the prequel convo go down: (1) Head over to www.nbc.com/CommunityTwittersode or (2) follow the Community gang on Twitter and watch it happen live in your Twitter feed.  Hop after the break to find all the characters’ Twitter handles.  (Mind you these are Twitter accounts for the fictional show characters, not the actual actors’ Twitter names.)  Happy tweeting!

[Via EW, here, here & here]

http://twitter.com/annieedisonGCC
http://twitter.com/jeffwingeratlaw
http://twitter.com/abedstweets
http://twitter.com/troytbone09
http://twitter.com/brittafeed
http://twitter.com/shirley_GCC
http://twitter.com/hawthornewipes
http://twitter.com/alexosbourneGCC
http://twitter.com/greendaledean
http://twitter.com/senorchang_gcc
http://twitter.com/oldwhitemansays
http://twitter.com/anniesB00Bs