2. Self-Referential/Meta-Humour
It's the small things that really get you.
Community is in the business of taking conventions, playing with 'em, mashing 'em up and even saying 'em out loud in order to get a laugh. There's an episode, late in Season Two (
Paradigms of Human Memory) where the show features a selection of 'flashbacks' to the group's year that we never got to see. Towards the end, Jeff begins to make his conventional 'bring-the-group-back-together' speech which is then juxtaposed into a variety of different shots and scenes of Jeff making similar speeches in order to match the given context. It's fantastic humour because it never takes itself too seriously and lives outside of reality. Hell they even centred an entire episode around the idea of being meta - a show within a show within a show. One could go crazy trying to unravel
Community's intrinsic humour but many have tried. One of my favourite gags came in early Season Three during the model-UN episode; Abed formulates a plan and when they all bring their heads in to listen, he begins to mumble quietly before Jeff tells him that 'they won't cut away for a montage' - it's genius, just...genius. Then they cut away for a montage. By combining a variety of satire, themes and pop-culture call-outs, Community has managed to go where no sitcom (that I've seen or heard of) has really gone before and deserves so much more credit than it gets, although it would be proud of its small, but incredibly vocal, following that has steadily risen since its earlier chapters. The show is not a nasty one either - it does take the piss out of other shows (mainly Glee), but its biggest joke is always reserved for itself. Self-deprecation at its very best/worst perhaps, but it works.