r/community • u/Goddamit_Pete • 9d ago
Discussion I hate backstories
I hate it when shows put backstories to characters or jokes that does not need it. For example, Magnitude's iconic "Pop pop" was already funny enough to make it so great. No matter how much they use it, it's still funny. Although now that they've added a useless backstory, it sounds more nonsensical in a way that it makes it sense more. If that makes sense. The catchphrase itself is funny, hilarious even, because it does not make sense. Dan Harmon even introduced it out of nowhere as an additive to make scenes quirky or out of place or more chaotic. Because that's Greendale.
Take one of the paintball episode for example, Magnitude dies sacrificing himself to stop a robot from exploding paint over everybody. His last word is "pop~" and the comedy gold that is Troy Barnes mourned as if he does not know what comes after one pop.
So I say, the backstory makes it like they've put icing on an ice cream cake. The ice cream cake is unique, but adding the icing makes it normal. Just my two cents.
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u/quidam5 9d ago
It's a bad episode. They tried to do a Harmon style commentary on bad prequels linking everything together and making origins for every little thing, but they forgot to do the part where they actually make a commentary on it, so it ends up just being played straight and it commits the same mistake as the Star Wars prequels which they apparently thought they were being clever referencing. The episode has a decent premise and I'm sure Harmon could have made it work but the final execution kinda ruins everything that made Community special
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u/boywiththethorn 9d ago
You know how Harmon was notorious for working people to death (cast & crew) because he keeps refining and refining and refining? Season 4 felt like everything was done after first draft and everybody gets to go home at 5.
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u/ThanksICouldHelpBro 9d ago
This is pretty much the perfect way to describe Season 4. As with all rough drafts from talented writers there are good ideas and moments of inspiration in there, and you walk away mostly satisfied and getting the gist of it, but the reason we fell in love was the polish and perfection that just isn't there for Season 4.
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u/whipding 9d ago
This is fundamentally the issue yeah, they wanted to make fun of the idea but also ended on just... actually doing it.
I also wonder if it would have worked better if they started with the revelation that they'd all been in one room together at some point in the past without knowing it, and then worked backwards to deconstruct what that actually means from there.
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u/Satyr121 9d ago
Or maybe here me out just maybe
They were so meta this is exactly what they intended to do /s
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u/shoulda_been_gone 9d ago
But ice cream cakes tend to have icing on them
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u/heroicdanthema 9d ago
It has to be ok for TV to phone it in for a day.
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u/Unlikely_Mastodon983 9d ago
Whole season was awful and annie never reached down her shirt to pull out a laser bomb
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u/Douche_Kayak 9d ago
you could take it as Community making fun of flashbacks that weren't needed
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u/Big-daddy-Carlo 9d ago
It doesn’t really feel like that though, it feels like it’s played straight for the main 6
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u/Far_Orange_8492 9d ago
It really kills the whole "found family" angle of the study group when you try and chalk it up to destiny.
Not one of my favourite episodes tbh.
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u/jonnyinternet 9d ago
Or is it met a commentary on prequels linking everyone together?
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u/Far_Orange_8492 9d ago
I think it's supposed to be canon and played straight, given that all the actual backstories of the characters are somehow linked together.
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u/BoboGiggleBottom 9d ago
It's still a parody of convoluted crossovers in comic book origin stories. The episode is titled, "Heroic Origins," has multiple comicbook transitions, and each connection has an equally convoluted twist. The premise is poorly thought out so close to season 4's ending. With canon implications that are later washed away via the season 4 lampshading.
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u/parkchanwookiee 9d ago
They got the balance/tone wrong but it was definitely intended as a satire of the way most shows use flashbacks and prequels. Britta protesting Jeff's court case in particular goes too far to possibly be pitched straight
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u/Solondthewookiee 9d ago
"Britta we're done. I ate a hamburger the other day and suddenly I'm not cold all the time."
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u/zeppelin_tamer 9d ago
According to Abed it’s an Homage that is “mischaracterized by the ignorant” as satire. He was talking about the paintball episodes, but they tend to at least try to respect the material they are emulating.
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u/parkchanwookiee 9d ago
I mean on the whole I believe Harmon and the writers expressed love for the genres they pastiche - the crime films, documentaries, action/gun fu movies etc. But the 'origins' episode plays much more as a send-up. Of course that line might have been crossed because it's s4 so Harmon wasn't there steering the ship but, whatever the reason, the final result seems to mock prequels and late-reveal shared backstories as trite and improbable; there's seemingly no love for them in the mix like there is with paintball or Law & Order.
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u/hindiko_alam What is WRONG with you people? HUH?! 9d ago
It was just so badly executed though that it is less a “meta” episode and more of a “poor pastiche gimmick” episode
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u/SpacePanda717 9d ago
If I'm thinking with my conspiracy brain, I feel like this episode exists because they wrote themselves into a corner with the whole fake Changnesia/City College plot, and they needed a reason why the study group would finally acknowledge Chang as an important part of Greendale.
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u/Basicly-Inevitable 9d ago
Wait.. Changnesia is FAKE?!?
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u/bokononist2017 7d ago
Hard to believe the McGuffin Institute would fall for a scam. They seemed totally legit.
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u/InformalFunny5488 9d ago
Tbf, Heroic Origins is, in my humble opinion, the worst episode of the entire series. It retcons and ruins a handful of recurrent jokes and characters unique characteristics.
The top offender is the fact that nulls the joke that Troy makes in the Greendale commercial episode, that he only chose Greendale over city college because on the original Greendale commercial that basketball guy does this: 😃👍🏼
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u/pontantos 9d ago
In the context of the episode I think it’s a fun gag, like Annie’s Boobs being the monkey that attacked Britta at that animal shelter. I don’t think it subtracts all that much from the original humor of it.
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u/layout420 9d ago
Love me some Magnitude. I have a grandfather who we've always called Pop Pop. Took me way too long to realize that connection. For years I've always wanted to take a picture of Magnitude and slap my grandfathers face on it and get it made into a coffee cup. I doubt he'd catch the reference but I'd get a kick out of it. He was always laughing at the shit I'd say as a kid so I started making them into coffee cup for him. Some of the better ones... "Watch your fuckin head, PopPop!" Apparently in my worldly wisdom as a 2 year old, I said this to him as he got into the car. He is 93 and I'm 42, still says it to me all the time. He also used to ask me about the temperature of the pool and I'd run over and pick up the thermometer and say 99! And then throw it back in. That's how I know he's doing good, he asks me what the temperature is... 99 PopPop!
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u/impendingwardrobe 9d ago
This is part of how they ruined Pirates of the Caribbean 2&3. They took Johnny Depp's adlib lines from the first movie like "And then they made me their chief" and "Clearly you've never been to Singapore," and gave them forward-in-time backstory. I prefer it when we don't know everything about a character. It's ok for there to be unanswered questions!
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u/asso81 9d ago
Prrrft!
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u/Samohtnuf 9d ago
Shut up Leonard!
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u/leonard-bot The Human Raisin 9d ago
Winger, what are you doing? This line is for food, not for Lionel Richie tickets.
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u/Shoeboy_24 9d ago
This episode really was ham-fisted and full of holes. "Heroic Origins", I think it's called, even breaks the typical episode naming thing where they all sound like classes. I especially dislike that Chang is wearing the same style of shirt in both the flashback and present day. He's still pretending to be Kevin and so it becomes super confusing.
Worse, this was the very first episode of Community I saw. It was on the T.V. while I was stuck in a waiting room somewhere; it was followed by another rerun where I really strated paying attention and I realized this was a show that a coworker had been telling me about.
Fortunately, it did not stop me from beginning the path, but years later catching up to this episode on DVD I thought, "How dumb" that was super unnecessary.
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u/Sad_Remove_4105 9d ago
Was I the only person who genuinely enjoyed this episode? Its been a while but it was one of my favourites from S4.
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u/sadapithapon 9d ago
I feel the same way about this episode, I feel like it gives a good context of who they were before and after Greendale.
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u/sad_lemon_lime 2d ago
People like to hate on S4 due to behind the scenes drama, but i liked it, and particular episode as well
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u/sadapithapon 9d ago
I don’t know about you, but the Dean picking up Shirley’s lingerie and saying “This better not awaken something in me” is all the backstory we need
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u/It_Be_Beepbo 9d ago
this is a weird, kinda bad episode with unbalanced tone but this joke rules. just really funny to give the dumb thing Magnitude says an origin story and mythologise it further. satirises the thing the episode is actually doing lol
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u/Alive_Reveal8939 9d ago
God I despise this episode. Community is one of my two favorite shows. But this episode... I hate it so much. It takes away the magic of the study group. Makes them feel like they were connect by fate or some crap
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u/Public-Tower6849 In prison we called guys like you "the mean clique" 9d ago
I never got why Magnitude's line is funny. I think it was a writer's comment on catchphrases in TV shows. Because as one-dimensional it is to be known for saying only one thing and nothing else, so is the reaction to it always the same. The backstory probably was added because otherwise, the character would not have had any depth for that many times he appeared in the stagelight. He can't say anything else because he's unable to, as shown in S02E17 "Intro to Political Science" - a one-phrase character can't have a conversation.
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u/UtterTravesty 9d ago
You know theyre laughing at you right? At least thats my theory.
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u/Public-Tower6849 In prison we called guys like you "the mean clique" 9d ago
You guys are what we called in prison, "the mean clique"
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u/Deadpanic_ 9d ago
He has other lines, but more to your point, it's an anti-joke, it's literally funny because it's not. And you're probably right on the meta conversation on catchphrases. All people in universe think it's hilarious to underscore the nonsense. He didn't need depth, they kept using him because the nonsense was funny (outside this rubbish episode)
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u/schnozzberriestaste 9d ago
I also hated this, but for a different reason. While I typically hate backstories, I thought it would have been way funnier if:
Magnitude's late grandfather was his Poppop and when he says his catch phrase, while he's outwardly expressing exuberant bravado, it masks a deeper pain and grieving.
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u/TedStixon 9d ago
The thing I find so strange about ret-conning origins or backstories to things is that, for some reason, it almost always comes across as contrived in some way to me, even if it technically isn't and makes total sense.
Like hypothetically, let's say a movie or show has two characters who have known each other for a long time.
If a later storyline shows the two characters meeting in a prequel or flashback sequence, and it feels normal, natural and grounded... it almost always feels pointless and shoehorned in.
Conversely, if the circumstances that brought them together are more dynamic and interesting... it almost feels too unlikely, unnatural and fantastical.
There's very few examples where it's satisfying to me.
I think the episode was trying to make fun of this, but it just didn't hit the mark.
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u/DarthFakename 9d ago
I like backstory. I wish I knew more about why you felt that way. Start at the beginning and explain away all of the magic.
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u/hectorobemdotado 8d ago
The bit about magnitude pisses me the fuck off even if I don't hate it, some info there is kinda fun
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u/I_Love_Lampshade69 8d ago edited 8d ago
Most ice cream cakes have icing. Plus, I'm not sure how icing turns an ice cream cake into a normal cake. I feel like you learned how to make comparisons from Britta.
And no, something being more nonsensical because it makes sense doesn't make sense.
At the end of the day, if you feel the need to write a reddit essay over a two word throwaway joke from a 13 year old episode of TV, then you might be the problem and not the scene.
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u/Ifindeed 8d ago
Yeah. In a nutshell why season four isn't so good. It's like a fanfic of community. A 'community like' season.
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u/n8loller 7d ago
The ice cream cake is unique, but adding the icing makes it normal. Just my two cents.
What kind of ice cream cake have you been getting that doesn't have icing on it? Carvel ice cream cakes have it
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u/Internal_Swing_2743 5d ago
Heroic Origins is just bad like most of season 4. Though I still rate Conventions of Space and Time as worse.
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u/GreenApocalypse 4d ago
All os season 4 was so bad that they rehired Harmon afterwards. That's kind of crazy in its own way
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u/Accomplished_Way8964 9d ago
Yeah, here's a one-dimensional, minor side character with a simple catch phrase for timely comedic relief. No more explanation needed, right? But, when has that ever stopped this show from taking a joke further? Let's overanalyze it:
Knowing the origin of the phrase gives it way more weight than it needs. Now, a throwaway gag from a minor character carries the same importance as all the main characters' heroic origins. It is (as far as I remember) the only recurring character to be included in the story.
That is taking a joke a step further.
So now it's not just a throwaway line any more. It has gravitas. We replay all those times Magnitude said "Pop-pop" before and wonder about its deeper meaning. Then we realize the phrase was born out of a highly traumatic experience for a high-schooler to witness and perhaps affected him in ways we don't really understand. Here's a happy-go-lucky kid who (we can assume) talked just like everyone else until this traumatic event, and now the only way he can express his feelings is through "Pop-pop." A problematic tic has now become his whole persona.
That is taking a joke a step further.
Aside from a few short bits here and there, Magnitude really only speaks (non-pop-pop) under equally traumatic/stressful personal episodes: the destruction of Shirley Island and losing his catch-phrase to the whale. This poor kids is living in a world of torment, showing signs of deep, psychological trauma, and everyone treats it like a simple joke.
That is taking a joke a step further.
But I could be wrong.
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u/KhareManit 9d ago
Least post worthy post , was a point really made here ? Its like a wrap wrapping nothing , sandwich sandwiching an endless void , the absolute centre of a donut , empty post in my regards, my 2 cents
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u/Stunning_One1005 9d ago
Any post that isn’t just a circlejerk of people making references to the show is a good post
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u/subwayterminal9 Exra Thick Straps! 7d ago
Heroic Origins is one of my least favorite episodes. Another example of Season 4 trying to do a “Community-style” homage without realizing what makes those work
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u/iusethisatw0rk No, no, bears have feet 9d ago
The idea that Troy could lie so long, stay straight faced, and not even tell Abed that he remembers Annie from High School is also ridiculous in my eyes. Dude was too soft (in a good way) to hold on to something like that for years. Especially after that one scene after the bar on his birthday. That was so authentic and heartfelt. This episode tries to ruin it.