Community Plans Stop-Motion Animated Christmas Episode

Community will celebrate the holiday season with a special stop-motion animated Christmas episode, TVGuide.com has learned.

"It's going to be like a timeless Christmas classic in the stop-motion medium that used to give us so much happiness as children," creator and executive producer Dan Harmon told reporters Friday.

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Harmon wrote the episode with Dino Stamatopoulos, who plays Star-Burns on the series. The episode will be completely animated like such Christmas classics as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, but Harmon that the episode is not necessarily a departure from Community's storytelling.

"There's a reason for it to be stop-motion animated, but it's not a dream. It still exists within the reality of the show," Harmon said, noting that characters will be able to refer to the episode's events afterwards.

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Harmon said the Christmas episode is just one of several upcoming special episodes, including a space-themed episode and what Harmon called "an extravagant and insane" Halloween episode directed by Anthony Hemingway, who recently directed True Blood's Season 3 finale.

"Second season, we're coming out of the gate with episodes that I refuse to wait to do," Harmon said. "We're doing stuff that you shouldn't be allowed to do in an entire season."

The new season of Community premieres on Thursday, Sept. 23 at 8/7c on NBC.