"COMMUNITY" TO "COUGAR TOWN" - AND BACK AGAIN

Earlier this season, did you see the 'Community' episode "Critical Film Studies"? (Most people know it as the "Pulp Fiction" episode.) In it, Abed channeled his inner Andre Gregory - as seen in the 1981 movie "My Dinner With Andre" - and delivered a memorable monologue about being invited to be an extra on the set of 'Cougar Town':

The capper came on the last night of May Sweeps, Wednesday, May 25, 2011, when actor Danny Pudi showed up in the background of a scene in the season-ender for 'Cougar Town':

At first, it looks like it's a confirmation that 'Cougar Town' is just a TV series and that what we're seeing is Abed - as "Chad" - doing his atmosphere people schtick on a fictional series. For some televisiologists, the best splainin they could hope for is that 'Community' takes place in Earth Prime-Time, the main Toobworld, while 'Cougar Town' is in that same TV dimension which houses 'Hi Honey, I'm Home' and those TV movies that look behind the scenes of classic TV shows.

But this is not a Zonk. 'Community' and 'Cougar Town' both still exist in the main Toobworld.

Oh, that could be Abed that we saw in the background. But it's not Abed playing a character named "Chad". It's the actual Abed Nadir - visiting West Gulfhaven after the end of his school semester at Greendale Community in Colorado.

If you remember what he said about his Hollywood experience, he was asked to walk through a scene in the background for a show called 'Cougar Town' which starred Courtney Cox. But in the 'Cougar Town' scene, he was sitting at a table outside the Subway sandwich shop and Courtney Cox was nowhere to be seen. Instead we had Dan Byrd and Busy Philips as their characters Travis Cobb and Laurie Keller, respectively.

The scene described by Abed was for a TV show within the Toobworld reality which was called 'Cougar Town'. The scene with Abed shown during 'Cougar Town' was Toobworld reality.

Does that make sense?

Abed wasn't acting as "Chad". That was really Abed. And as for Courtney Cox, there's been no real mention to her in connection to 'Cougar Town' within the show. There just happens to be a divorcee in West Gulfhaven named Jules Cobb who happens to look like Courtney Cox. And the name 'Cougar Town' doesn't even come into play within the series, unless West Gulfhaven does have that reputation - and it probably does, thanks to women like Barb.

So, again, the 'Cougar Town' mentioned within 'Community' is not the same show as seen by the TV audience viewing at home in the Trueniverse.

Which reminds me of this Inner Toob post from My 15, about the two-part season finale of 'Community':

Also thanks to Alan Sepinwall for pointing this out, but you can see Busy Phillips and Dan Byrd among the students during that big apocalyptic attack on the Pistol Patty's ice cream truck near the end of Part Two. This could mean that Laurie accompanied Travis to Greendale Community College so that he could check out another option for school. And they didn't have to fly from West Gulfhaven, Florida, but instead from the 'Cougar Town' season finale in Hawaii. In fact, the whole gang could conceivably be there on campus, but all we saw were Laurie and Trav.

You know Jules would shoot down Greendale as an option after seeing the paintball carnage!

So it's possible that Abed got the chance to talk with Laurie and Travis and then decided to follow them back to West Gulfhaven to see it for himself. And, having been discovered, he bolted in case they thought he was stalking them.....

BCnU!