Unless you've been living in a cave for the past month, you've probably been bombarded with commercials for two NBC shows: 1) "The Jay Leno," and 2) "Community."
The Leno show is off and running, so your eyeballs can finally get a rest from the NBC promotional Blitzkrieg.
But as for "Community," the ads are still in full force. We haven't been this swamped with commercials since "Frank TV" took over the MLB post season.
By now, we get it, NBC. Joel McHale and Chevy Chase are up to hijinks at a community college. Hilarity ensues. But what we didn't know was that "Community" is based on show creator Dan Harmon's experiences at our-very-own Glendale Community College.
In the show, McHale goes back to school at Greendale Community College. If we weren't so busy yelling at NBC to get some new commercials, we may have noticed the similarity. Greendale. Glendale. Glendale. Greendale. The naming convention has a certain Oprah/Uma charm to it.
According to the Daily News, Harmon was 32 years old when he enrolled at Glendale Community College in an attempt "to try to keep my relationship with my girlfriend alive."
"We took Spanish together thinking, 'Let's force each other to work on something that isn't sex,'" said Harmon, who brought that experience to his new NBC show.
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Harmon told the Daily News that there was even some concern from another local community college about the show:
There "was concern expressed" by an official at Los Angeles Community College, where the show's exteriors are filmed, about how community colleges would be portrayed, Harmon said.
"We assured him, if anything, this is going to be a commercial for community college in general because this is a place where you can do anything and be anything," he said. "The flawed characters are coming into it and becoming unflawed by being in this place because it's been underestimated by the system around it."
"Community" airs Thursday at 9:30 p.m. on NBC. Hopefully after the Sept. 17 debut, it'll be a huge hit and the commercial overload will wane.
In the meantime, we have to assume McHale will continue to plug the living daylights out of "Community" on E's "The Soup." Despite our fatigue with NBC's blast of promos, we find the shameless plugs on "The Soup" strangely endearing.
There's just something that feels right about rooting for McHale. Perhaps we've spent too many years screaming, "It's reality show clip time."
So good luck, Joel. We're all counting on you -- and not just because we're sick of promos for your new show. By the way, we heard "The Informant" opens Friday.
