Cougar Town
In the episode "Critical Film Studies", Abed mentions he traveled to Los Angeles to appear in a scene in the television series "Cougar Town". In the second-season finale of "Cougar Town", Danny Pudi as Abed appears in the background of a scene. "Cougar Town" actors Dan Byrd and Busy Philipps also appeared briefly in the background of a scene in second-season finale of "Community". "Cougar Town" creator Bill Lawrence explained, "They had Abed have a love of "Cougar Town", we had Travis have a love of "Community", and once we got wind of what they were having Abed say he experienced out here, we were going to try to find a way of Danny being a background character and essentially act that same thing out on our show." "Community" previously had an episode that featured several shout-outs to "Cougar Town". The mutual admiration between the two shows started as "Cougar Town" creators Bill Lawrence and Kevin Biegel became friends with "Community" creator Dan Harmon, and would often tweet each other. Also, "Community" executive producers Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan previously worked with Lawrence on "Scrubs" for several years.