10 Funniest Christmas TV Specials To Watch This Holiday Season

2. Community - Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas

Community has always had a ‘bubbling under’ sense of popularity; lots of committed fans without the bulk of casual viewers needed to take it to the upper echelons of television. The quality of the writing in the first three seasons especially though deserves to be up there with the very best.

Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas is one of their most inventive episodes, and a brilliantly funny Christmas Special. Abed, upset at missing out on his holiday tradition of watching Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer with his mother, experiences a mental break. It gets much funnier than this dark premise suggests.

Abed imagines the whole study group in stop-motion claymation, and they engage him in this fantasy as they figure out what’s upsetting him. Even the characters alone, like Jeff being a Jeff-in-the-box, are great. Especially the reactions to the more unflattering imaginings.

The Christmas references are funny too but the real star here is John Oliver as Professor Duncan. His mother’s ill health kept him out of the cast in some seasons, but when he’s there he often steals the show. Abed discovering the ‘true’ meaning of Christmas through rationalising his disappointment with Lost Season 1 is perfect for his character too.