Community Season 1 Music
Community is a show where intense paintball battles break out in the hallways and tainted meat turns a school dinner into a pseudo-zombie outbreak. But it’s also a place where students learn how to grow up and live with their mistakes.
No song captures this more than the show’s main title music. Stately chords, soaring strings and a discordant piano topline make this one of the most iconic themes in television history.
At Least It Was Here
The first season of Community was full of memorable moments, from Pierce’s fever dream after huffing paint fumes to Annie’s sexy dance in the library. But one song that really stuck out was the show’s theme, At Least It Was Here by The 88.
The song’s lyrics are about the end of something, but it’s up to listeners to decide what that something is. Fans have been debating the meaning of the song on forums since Community became a cult favorite, and most interpretations lean toward morbidity.
Despite the death-themed song, it has a catchy melody that’s perfect for a show about the joys of community college. It’s been hummed by Troy, Abed, Shirley, and more throughout the series, even though the song isn’t explicitly in the episodes themselves.
Greendale Is Where I Belong
From the first episode of Community, this song has been interpreted in a variety of ways. Some interpret it as a death song (and it does reference ropes and the specter of hanging yourself), while others see it as more life-affirming. Regardless of what you think it means, the song is catchy and the perfect backdrop to the study group’s misadventures.
This tune is played during a montage of the study group getting ready for their second year at Greendale. Jeff makes amends with Pierce over their Spanish project snafu, and Annie’s attempts to impress her jaded professor lead to an accidental rap battle.
It also plays during a scene in which Jim Rash’s Dean Pelton tries to convince his staff to make Greendale more respectable, culminating in an epic paintball battle with the dean of City College. This is a great example of the cheeky humor that makes the show so special. It’s a shame that it only ran for six seasons.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
If there is one TV show that has remained a cult favorite in the streaming era, it’s Community. After NBC canceled the comedy in 2014, Sony-backed SVOD platform Yahoo Screen picked up the series for its fifth and final season. And now, more than seven years after the show’s last episode aired, it’s finally getting a movie.
The show stars Andy Samberg as Jake Peralta, a talented but immature NYPD detective in Brooklyn’s 99th Precinct who clashes with their new, serious commanding officer, Raymond Holt. The rest of the squad includes his fellow detectives, over-achievers Amy Santiago and Charles Boyle; sexy yet intimidating Rosa Diaz; the devoted family man Detective Sergeant Terry Jeffords; and the lax precinct administrator Gina Linetti.
The show’s cold open, featuring a group of police officers dancing to “Move On Up” by The 88, is particularly iconic. The lyric “stick your hair down flat like it was covered in mud/trim that pencil mustache and pop those peepers” perfectly describes the scene.
Journey To The Center Of Hawkthorne
A 2D platformer that evokes the look of 16-bit video games. It was built using LOVE, an open-source game engine that allows anyone to contribute to the game and its development. It was created for use in Community’s Digital Estate Planning episode, and it has also been made available for non-Community viewers.
It’s not clear whether the creators of Journey to the Center Of Hawkthorne intended it as a peace offering to Chevy Chase (who plays Pierce in the episode) or as a dig at his feuds with Dan Harmon, but it serves both purposes well. The game pits the study group against Cornelius’s former assistant and his warped view of everyone else he considers inferior to himself.
Its pixelated style and gameplay make it easy for even the least literate gamers to understand its mechanics. But it’s the inclusion of morality systems and creativity-encouraging gameplay that makes it a true testament to gaming in all its forms.
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