‘Community’ on Yahoo: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Six seasons and a movie … and another stop at the San Diego Comic-Con. Community, saved at the 11th hour by Yahoo! TV, will return to this year’s convention on Thursday, July 24 to celebrate the show’s new home and another year with the gang of Greendale.

Creator Dan Harmon, star Joel McHale and more cast members will attend the panel.

Here’s what to expect for Community‘s future online.


1. Season 6 of ‘Community’ Will Air on Yahoo!

After NBC canceled Community back in May, the show looked doomed to reach its goal of six seasons and a movie. Then Hulu showed interest, but yet again fans hopes were dashed when the online video streaming service couldn’t make a deal. Even Harmon shared at the Banff World Media Festival in June that he had begun to lose hope for his little show that could:

I would temper that I feel, just as a regular fellow looking at the whole thing, it seems so impossible to pull off. So many deals would have to be made that aren’t currently made. So many contracts would have to be negotiated.

Then the impossible occurred. Yahoo! revived Community for at least one more season just three hours before a July 1 deadline (when the actor’s contracts expired with Sony Productions). The possibility for more Community beyond a sixth season remains a possibility, Yahoo chief marketing officer Kathy Savitt told Vulture:

Our hope is to build and extend and prolong… that it has a healthy future for season six and well beyond.

2. The Whole Cast Has Signed on for Season 6

Cast members Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Alison Brie, Yvette Nicole Brown, Jim Rash, and Ken Jeong signed on for the new season. Dan Harmon’s call to action hashtag #SixSeasonsAndAMovie came true (see the origin of the phrase in the video above) and everyone celebrated the renewal on Twitter.


3. The Show Will Reach 100 Episodes

Community aired 97 episodes over its five seasons on NBC, coming up three shy of the coveted 100 episode mark. With the renewal, the show will celebrate that achievement in episode three of its 13-episode sixth season. Yahoo plans to air each new episode this fall on a weekly basis, rather than releasing them all at once.

Despite the show not reaching 100 episodes, a threshold commonly used for determining syndication, Comedy Central began airing repeats of Community in September 2013.

All 97 episodes of Community can be streamed on Hulu and purchased at Amazon and iTunes. Harmon joked at the Comic-Con panel about those who illegally download the show:

Community season six: now you’re watching the way you used to watch only now it’s legal.

Watch the cast discuss their thoughts on the show ending just short of 100 episodes, before their sixth season renewal, in the video above (starts at 2:12).


4. Harmon and Cast Tease Next Season of ‘Community’ at Comic-Con

community, dan harmon, danny pudi, san diego comic con

(Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

When the cast and their creator reconvene at San Diego Comic-Con, they will recap season five and discuss what’s next for Jeff Winger and his study buddies. If Harmon gets his wish that could mean a possible return of Donald Glover and his character Troy Barnes. He explained at Community‘s 2014 PaleyFest panel what extreme measures he would take to have Glover back at Greendale:

I’m just going to go home, kill a chicken, drink its blood, make a Blair Witch thing out of its bones, pray to every deity that I have to that if we do get a sixth season that Donald will have tired of his Donald-ness.

TV Guide magazine’s executive editor Michael Schneider moderated the July 24 panel in Ballroom 20. Read the tweets below to see Jacobs reaction to the original cancellation, McHale’s back up plan and what Harmon has in store for season six (Pokemon? Vampires? Anti-Vaccination Messages?):


5. President Barack Obama Wanted ‘Community’ Back

barack obama, joel mchale, community, white house correspondents dinner

(Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images)

McHale thought a season six renewal was a forgone conclusion when President Barack Obama asked about the show’s future when McHale hosted this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. He told Variety about his surprise to NBC’s cancellation of his show:

Our ratings were good compared to the other NBC comedies. After President Obama asked me if it was coming back or not at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, I really thought, ‘well this seems to be in the zeitgeist.’