Five Reasons Community Deserves Another Season
Danny Pudi makes the pitch for the show’s senior year
Danny Pudi makes the pitch for the show’s senior year
Photo Courtesy of Justin Lubin/NBC | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
As Community’s pop culture lexicon Abed Nadir, Danny Pudi gets to make the wildest movie and TV references imaginable, from a Goodfellas-inspired chicken finger smuggling ring to a Claymation holiday breakdown. After a brief hiatus, Abed is back to dropping Who’s the Boss theories every Thursday, and Pudi is being tapped as the face of uncomfortable situations for Men’s Speedstick’s new “Handle It” campaign. But as Community‘s fourth season still hangs in the balance, Pudi gave us five reasons it belongs on your TVs this fall.
The Troy and Abed Friendship
When you look at Troy and look at Abed separately coming from their universes, you think, “There’s no way these two guys would be friends.” One’s a jock, and one is, you know, a Farscape expert. [Laughs] So how are you going to match up these two? But I think together they both allow each other to be their true selves and they never even question it. They’re just like, “Hey, you wanna do a crabwalk right now?” And of course they both want to do a crabwalk. Finally someone else is there to crabwalk with them. So that to me is why the friendship works.
The Fans
In terms of the fan support, we couldn’t have asked for better. Our fans are incredible and they’re very, very creative. If you look anywhere, there’s all this fan fiction. There’s probably more blogs, fan fiction and websites dedicated to Community than any other show. It’s incredible. We live in a bubble here, where we are shooting pretty consistently and we don’t really know the reach of our show and how it affects fans across the country and across the world. It’s really encouraging, and it’s inspiring when we get notes from fans or we see Facebook pages pop up, Twitter pages pop up, flash mobs pop up.
Practical Life Skills
I was in the background delivering a baby in an episode, which actually really helped me because I just had babies. So that was good practice.
Everyone Matters
It’s funny when you’re wondering what’s happening in the background. Is Starburns paying attention to the study group and their stupid adventures in the biology lab? And that to me is just a cool thing, which just shows the effort the writers take.
Natural New Class Spin-Off
[In five or ten years] I could see Abed teaching at Greendale, and I could actually see a lot of the study group in some way being faculty at Greendale. Maybe Britta’s teaching photography, maybe Troy is teaching heating and air conditioning. Jeff is teaching law, Shirley’s teaching baking. Pierce is teaching, uh, moist toilette moguling. [Laughs] I don’t even know what he would teach. I guess he could be teaching the benefits of getting along with an older generation.
Photo Courtesy of Lewis Jacobs/NBC | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
On Troy and Abed in Real Life
I was out in Las Vegas last weekend and I got to do a guest DJ set with this DJ, L.A. Riot, and literally while I was up there, people were like, “Where’s Troy?” And a small chant [laughs], a small chant of “Troy and Abed in Las Vegas!” started happening with this group of women, and for a second I had to be like, “No, no. Donald [Glover]’s not here.” It’s just been fun to be a part of this cultural thing where I’m actually always kind of aware where Donald is. Because I always have to answer where he’s at, where’s Donald. I knew he was at Coachella at the time, so I was like, “Donald’s at Coachella right now!”
On the Jamie Lee Curtis Comparisons
You know, at first, I was a little embarrassed. Especially because I would consider myself a man. And then I don’t know if it was my wife or someone else who showed me a picture comparing both of our faces side by side. And then it was more of a realization, like, “Wow, there’s a lot of stuff I don’t know about myself.” [Laughs] One of them being that I really do look like Jamie Lee Curtis…..I don’t know, I don’t feel good about it.
On Meeting Master P As Jamie Lee
That week that I had to actually dress up like Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies, of course that was the week when I had the most visitors around. So my mom came to the set, my wife’s mom came to the set and she couldn’t even make eye contact. And that week of course was the week I met Master P. While I’m in the Jamie Lee Curtis outfit. Ken Jeong introduces me to Master P and I’m like, “Hey man, I’m a big fan,” just dropping my voice as low as possible.
Photo Courtesy of Lewis Jacobs/NBC | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
On His Ideal Guest Star
One of the shows that I really dug was called Spaced, with Simon Pegg. I’m a big fan of Shaun of the Dead. So Simon Pegg or Nick Frost to me would be really, really fun to work with. I think they would bring a fun dynamic to our group. More than anything, I just wanna hang out with them for a week on set. That would be a great week for Abed, but an even greater week for Danny, because both reactions would be the same. I would just be staring at them and asking them various questions about Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and just geeking out.
On Embarrassing Meetings with the In-Laws
Awkward situations are kinda my wheelhouse. I don’t know if it’s because I’m aloof or because I’m half Polish and half Indian and my mom made me do Polish dance, but I’ve been in so many awkward situations. Like when I met my wife’s parents for the first time. She was just my girlfriend at the time. They came to Marquette, where we were at, and they took us out to lunch, which was a big deal because we didn’t have any money for lunch. We were driving down Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee and instinct took over, because I think I was uncomfortable ‘cause I was in the backseat and my wife’s father was driving. We’re driving past a Hooters and I just yell, “HOOTERS!” And it got real quiet in the car and then I realized, “What am I doing? That was the worst icebreaker ever.” And then I was like, “Well they have really good wings!” and they sort of just drove on. [Laughs] I think Bridget’s dad started to giggle a little bit and I thought that was probably going to end our relationship, but hopefully it proved to them that I’m very comfortable being awkward.
Got any awkward stories of your own? Tweet them to @Speedstickwith the hashtag #HandleIt between April 23 and May 14. Danny Pudi will pick his favorite and turn it into a video!
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