page_title: G.I. Jeff
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: G.I. Jeff / Production
caption_attribution_description: English: Chris McKenna at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con International in San Diego, California.
context_page_description: "G.I. Jeff" is the eleventh episode of the fifth season of Community, and the 95th episode overall in the series. It originally aired on April 3, 2014 on NBC. The episode was written by Dino Stamatopoulos, and directed by Rob Schrab. The episode was completed in the animation style of the popular 1980s children's television animated series, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero.
  The episode received generally positive reviews, with critics praising the affectionate homage to the childhood cartoon series. Despite positive reviews, however, the episode saw season lows of 0.9/3 in the 18-49 rating/share demo and 2.50 million American viewers.
context_section_description: Series creator and co-showrunner Dan Harmon initially announced that there would be an animated episode during the cast and crew's visit to the San Diego Comic-Con in July 2013.  Series writer and co-showrunner Chris McKenna said the idea for the concept of the episode came about in a simple way: "I think Harmon said, 'Let's do a G.I. Joe episode!'" McKenna said that the show wanted to pay tribute to the 1980s animated series: "[G.I. Joe] was something from our childhood that was very important to us and we had fond memories of it, and we thought it would be a cool way to do another animated episode. Like all Community episodes, it takes on a certain style. This one has a very specific story reason for it. I don’t want to give too much away, but our characters find themselves on a Wizard of Oz-type journey through the world of G.I. Joe. … There’s a mystery that Jeff in particular has to get to the bottom of." McKenna added that the Community team had been working overtime to craft "a loving homage to the G.I. Joe series." 
  Though production for the live-action episodes had been completed in December 2013, the cast recorded their voices in late March 2014.  McKenna said the delay was due to the fact that they broke and re-broke the story several times in order to utilize all the regulars and guest stars in the Community universe, as well as to find a proper justification for using the animated medium to tell their story.  McKenna said that Rob Schrab (Scud: The Disposable Assassin) was the "perfect person" to direct the episode and "he's absolutely a maniac trying to get it together." McKenna explained that this episode is not simply a sketch, but that the characters take on this style to carry out a story that takes place in the real world, which Harmon stated was a story was about "age and dying."
  The episode was animated by Harmon's animation studio, Starburns Industries, which had previously animated the claymation episode, "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas". The episode was animated with the permission of the G.I. Joe's toy manufacturer, Hasbro. Harmon had this to say about Hasbro's willingness to lend its iconic style:
  "The weird thing was how cooperative they were. Not that we maligned their product in any way, but their product is a syndicated, children's cartoon with a different rating than ours, so it's like part of the point of the episode is that there's a different sensibility within this world. So I thought they'd have more problems than they did with the idea of Jeff Winger's G.I. Joe character accidentally killing people. But they were cool with that! More power to them, because they were very, very gracious with their product. That's really cool too, because you're accustomed in TV that if someone pulls out a Snickers bar, it always says 'Snookers.' So the weird thing is that when you see actual branding like that, it hits your brain like it's kind of revolutionary. Which is dumb, because why should that be? But you see the G.I. Joe logo and we have G.I. Joe characters talking to our characters…"
caption: Chris McKenna, executive producer of Community.
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