Community’s Danny Pudi Reveals His Favorite Episode of the Series

Throughout its six seasons on the air Community gave viewers some of the most unique experiences television had to offer. From paintball battles to pillow fort wars, and even dark alternate timelines, Community went to the craziest corners of imagination and pulp culture history to deliver a show unlike any other. Of course, if you ask any Community fan about their favorite episode, there’s a wide variety of answers you could get in return. The same goes for the stars of the series as well.

The easy answer for anyone when it comes to top Community episodes, the easy answer for anyone to give is “Modern Warfare”, the Justin Lin-directed paintball episode from Season 1, or “Remedial Chaos Theory,” the Season 3 episode that introduced multiple timelines to the series. However, when ComicBook.com asked Abed actor Danny Pudi about his favorite episode of Community, he went with one of the less talked about gems of the series, “Critical Film Studies.”

“Yeah, I do. I think it’s the My Dinner with Andre episode, for me,” Pudi told us. “‘Critical Film Studies,’ which I think is the 19th episode of Season 2.”

The episode is about Abed’s birthday, where Jeff and the rest of the study group plan a Pulp Fiction-themed dinner for their friend. Abed, however, has his own plans to meet Jeff at a fancy restaurant, where he reveals that a recent experience has made him “normal,” and he simply wants to have a grown-up dinner. This all turns out to be a ruse, as Abed just wanted to play out the plot to the film My Dinner With Andre.

“There’s so much that I’ve forgotten. I’ve been re-watching, too,” Pudi continued.. “Even talking about even when Pierce shows up with these pamphlets about him being a level five laser lotus. There’s all these little things there, all these amazing actors. Like watching Kevin Corrigan try to teach a class while I’m doing a Nicolas Cage impression on his desk. There’s just so much there. But that ‘Critical Film Studies’ episode was to me, so special.

“It was directed by Richard Ayoade, who I am a huge fan of. I just remember that episode. We didn’t really even have a script. Dan Harmon brought me up to the writers’ room, and I could see that there was really nothing written. I just knew the outline of that episode right before we were filming that episode. They told me to watch My Dinner with Andre. I was terrified because I had never seen the movie, I knew there wasn’t a script yet. It was a Friday, and we were filming on Monday. But at the same time I was like, ‘What a brave show.’ What a beautiful and brave, courageous show that we could be on, where we know that we’re going to make this happen because we have to. The amount of trust they put in me and the amount of trust we had in each other that week, that really stuck out to me. Because I feel like we came out with something that I take is so bizarre and so creative, and I’m just proud to be part of that.”

For Pudi, it wasn’t just the finished product of “Critical Film Studies” that makes it his favorite episode of the series, but rather the difficult challenge of bringing it all to life.

Which episode of Community is your favorite? Let us know in the comments!