‘Community’ Fans Show Their Solidarity With Planned Flash Mob

We already know that Community fans are peeved about NBC pushing the comedy off of its midseason schedule, but a very committed group of fans want to make sure they’re heard and seen. They’re planning a flash mob on Thursday at the network’s New York headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Center.

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“It really hit a chord with me, it struck me as being very unfair that 25,000 Nielsen boxes could keep or kill this beautiful show,” one of the mob organizers, Catherine Boyd, tells the New York Post. “That is very upsetting.”

And judging by a Facebook page for the event, things could get out of control (in the hilarious sense) as it encourages fans to meet to sing Christmas carols, bring a picture or a drawing of a Christmas tree, and wear a black goatee made of felt or construction paper. Oh, and if you don’t have time to get that made… there will probably be extra goatees available.

“I’m not all that funny and I’m kind of a nerd,” Boyd says. “So I came up with what I thought was something that’s surreal, that everyone in New York could join in and sing a Christmas song for just two minutes.”

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For more information on the flash mob, visit the event page on Facebook. The group is also spreading the word on Twitter with the hashtags #OccupyNBC and #SaveCommunity.

NBC announced its midseason schedule in mid-November and it didn’t take long for Community fans to realize that the comedy wasn’t on it. The network later confirmed the show would be returning at a TBD date.

Cast member Yvette Nicole Brown told The Hollywood Reporter that the cast all knew that the benching would be a possibility.

“[We] knew we had five shows for four slots,” Brown said. “So, at some point someone was going to have to step to the side and let [30 Rock] back on Thursday nights. NBC is a business. They have to make business decisions. This goes beyond what executives there feel about the show. The executives there love our show.”

The series has never been a huge ratings winner for the network, but the network always knew its small and loyal audience would tune in every week and up until now it didn’t have another comedy it felt would perform as well or better than Community in the 8 p.m. slot on Thursday. This season, the series averaged 3.6 million viewers an episode.

Email: Jethro.Nededog@thr.com; Twitter: @TheRealJethro