BLOGS
As voice of (semi) reason Jeff Winger remarked at the end of last night's holiday-themed episode of Community, "Regional Holiday Music," it's been a dark semester for our favorite Greendale students, what with Jeff "basically killing a guy", Dean Pelton going mad in the jungle and the creation of an alternate timeline with evil versions of Troy and Abed. So it was thoughtful of the writers to offer up a light-hearted, music-filled Glee spoof for the show's last episode of 2011. Of course, then we remembered that this could potentially be the last Community episode of the entire midseason and we got dark and depressed all over again. So we watched "Regional Holiday Music" a second time and its spot-on side-swipes at Glee (particularly Taran Killiam's scary-good Matthew Morrison impression as Cory Radison or, as he prefers, "Mr. Rad"), glimpses of the Inspector Spacetime Holiday Special (we'll get to see more of that one day, yes?), the sweet finale with all the gang together and -- best of all -- the musical numbers that raised our spirits all over again. Here's how we graded each original tune.
"Glee"
Singers: Abed and Mr. Radison
Sounds Like: The big number at a fifth-grade recital
Would Have Been Performed on Glee By: Mr. Schue and Kurt
Funniest Lyric: "Everything's cooler when cameras are spinning."
Grade: B. A fun warm-up for even better songs to come.
"Jehovah's Secret Witness"
Singers: Troy and Abed
Sounds Like: A lost cut off of the Jay-Z/Kanye album, Watch the Throne
Would Have Been Performed on Glee By: Puck and Artie
Funniest Lyric: "I'll watch all the TV specials that I never could/I'll even cry during the sad ones like James Bond would."
Grade: B+. We especially liked Troy's use of Auto-Tune.
"Baby Boomer Santa"
Singers: Troy, Abed and Pierce
Sounds Like: Those Justin Timberlake/Jimmy Fallon "History of Rap" duets on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Would Have Been Performed on Glee By: Santana, Brittany and Sue
Funniest Lyric: "Santa fought at Woodstock and Vietnam/And smoked a ton of acid and burned his bra."
Grade: A-. Just a pure slice of music history awesomeness, from the big band era, through Bob Dylan and disco to '90s pop. Thanks, Baby Boomer Santa!
"Teach Me How to Understand Christmas"
Singers: Annie
Sounds Like: A vintage Betty Boop jam
Would Have Been Performed on Glee By: Rachel
Funniest Lyric: "Where does the stocking go? Here? I can't see!"
Grade: A+. Honestly, we stopped listening to anything Annie was saying or singing after she put on that Santa's helper outfit. If Community really wants to increase its ratings (and Dan Harmon does), making that her full-time costume might help.
"Happy Birthday Jesus"
Singers: Shirley and an adorable youth choir
Sounds Like: A gospel standard
Would Have Been Performed on Glee By: Mercedes
Funniest Lyric: "We asked our public schools to give the answer/But they could only teach us not to pray."
Grade: B+. Maybe not the most faith-encompassing holiday song around, but we liked watching Shirley getting her gospel groove on.
"Planet Christmas"
Singers: Ensemble (plus Britta)
Sounds Like: Community theater
Would Have Been Performed on Glee By: The entire cast with Mike Chang on solo vocals.
Funniest Lyric: "I got a Christmastime for me/I got a Christmastime for a tree/Christmas! Christmastime!/Me so Christmas, me so merry!"
Grade: A. With apologies to Barbara Robinson, this is the best Christmas pageant ever.
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I know it wasn't a full, original song, but I also loved the introduction of the Glee Club in the beginning of the episode. Not to mention....Regionals!
Truly the biggest problem with this country is that people don't take a half hour a week to relax and watch this show.
Loved this episode! Love that the best episode of glee this season was done by community.
Teach me how to understand christmas had Santana or Brittany's name on it, not rachel
You don't get to call Britta the worst!!!!!!!!!!
Merry Changmas everyone!
What??? You didn't rate "Carol of the Deans"????
I loved this episode...and I can't believe we have to wait until after regionals (What the heck are regionals, anyway?) to see it again. Sigh.
No, Ems, Rachel would be perfect for the song. Annie and Rachel are quite alike. Plus, they're both Jewish - so the song would translate into Gleeverse well.
Well, they all keep popping up on The Soup. It's not the same, but it helps.
Best moment-Jeff's "Invastion of the Body Snatchers" reaction to Britta's trying to warn him they'd gotten Shirley.
Dean dong Dean dong, y'all!
mmmmm... I agree with Ems, Brittany because of the sexiness and the playing stupid. Annie and Rachel do match up but the song fits Brittany better
I loved all of it, except for Annie's song. It was just an over-the-top pedo bear "girls are dumb, that's hot". I liked that Jeff pointed that out. But of course, the tiny-porn-star routine works and... Idk, it was just too annoying. Too much.
I could watch them sing Baby Boomer Santa like a billion times and never get sick of it. Troy as Bob Dylan is perfection.
When they had a piano player like Glee, it made my night. Great episode.
Pierce asking if everyone else could see the piano player was awesome.
Also Kary that was the whole point of Annie's song...she got progressively more annoying and dumber and dumber until she was just babbling nonsense baby syllables. it was a big FU to that kind of exploitation.
D-Real, I think that was my favorite part of Annie's song - she just go dumber and dumber until "Shoo dee doop: Sex!"
Kary - that was the point - the show was clearly making a point about the objectification and infantalisation of women with Annie's song, and how it degenerated further and further as the song went on - I loved it for that very reason!
I LOVED this episode! It basically felt like one big metaphor for how I feel about Glee. The whole nation seems to have fallen in love with it but, to me, I feel like Britta in in the middle of a horror movie and I just keep watching helplessly as my poor friends get caught in Glee's stupid, non-sensical trap (apologies to any Glee fans reading this).
Man, this was an amazing episode; I've already watched it twice and I can't wait to show it to my Glee-fan son when he gets home from college next week. Troy and Abed's rap was great (Abed: 'on the spectrum- none of your business') but the 'Baby Boomer Santa' was golden. I also love Shirley's conversion moments when the little kids were singing about public school 'teaching them not to pray.' Also, when Jeff smacked the mistletoe out of Annie's hands as she prepared to eat it. Hee!
This show is so clever and warm and hysterically funny; I just can't find that anywhere else on TV right now. I am going to miss it so much, but I hope it won't be off the schedule for long. #sixseasonsandamovie!
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After the opening of A Very Glee Christmas I was psyched - I began to be very disappointed and unenthusiastic about the rest of the show . The episode very hard to follow and it seems like it was all over the board! I totally did not get the Star Wars bit - an idea would have been a "Donny and Marie" style show on I've skates from 1970's -that would have been real CAMP!
I didn't care for Christmas episode.
Haha that's rediculous. No way
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LOVE Glee. tonight's epiosde was great and i'm sooo stoked for the rocky horror picture show epiosde. too bad it's two weeks away.you should check out the discussion on glee and giveaways coming up here:www.letsgetbeyondtolerance.blogspot.com
I rllaey, rllaey like this show. I'm not sure how I feel about them humanizing Sue as much as they did in the episode before this most recent one.The only thing that rllaey bugged me and the DH about this most recent episode is that Will shouldn't rllaey be disqualified as an advisor for accepting the mattress. Only the kids need to have amateur status. Of course suspension of disbelief and all that but internally consistent logic is important.Jump was awesome. Will getting angry was amazing. The great thing about Will is they give all the usual after-school special cues that he's like totally the best thing that ever happened to those kids when in reality, though his heart is in the right place, more often than not he cares more about how cool he is, screws up, acts like a baby, or does something completely unethical. Despite all of that he is incredibly attractive. That's right, he's no Justin Timberlake. He's way better than that.