Community's season premiere will have lots of "tributes," which is itself a reference to something

By Sean O'Neal | September 7, 2012 | 6:31pm

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Given one last chance to attract the broader audience that has so eluded it, Community's fourth-season premiere will give America something it already loves: Jim Rash wearing "multiple dresses." But also, as revealed in this Entertainment Weekly preview, a parody of mega-popular series The Hunger Games—or as EW puts it, "tribute," because Hunger Games—with a similarly cutthroat competition staged, at the Dean's suggestion, in order to win enrollment in a class called "The History Of Ice Cream." (Joel McHale explains, "Ice cream is something that people eat every day and they probably don’t know its origin story. Fuck you and your elitist I-don’t-need-to-know-about-my-frozen-treats-and-where-they-came-from attitude.") Above you can see an image from said contest for the elective of your dreams/eyeballs of curious Hunger Games-obsessed teens; below is an image of a man who won an Oscar.

Will this ploy to drum up viewership through pop-culture parody stunts and high-concept cartoonishness upset fans who are already upset about that sort of thing and will likely never be appeased anyway? Maybe! If so, it probably also goes for McHale's other revelation that the Oct. 19 premiere will also be "an homage to something that kids in the late ’80s and early ’90s watched on Saturday mornings." Double Dare? Saved By The Bell? Their parents fighting again? Only six more weeks until you find out.