Hilarious In Hindsight / Community

• Related to the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In "Football, Feminism and You", Jeff says that one of Pierce's mascot disguises looks like "a falcon with a gun." The Russo Brothers (who worked on several episodes of the show, and one of whom — Joe Russo — directed this particular episode) later directed four MCU films, all of which feature the Falcon (who uses guns).
  • "Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television" throws a Take That! at the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which sees Jeff and Annie insulting it. A little over a year later, Dan Harmon wrote some additional scenes for reshoots of Doctor Strange (2016), and even came out of the experience with nothing but positive things to say about both Marvel Studios and the MCU. Furthermore, there seems to be a minor meta-textual Running Gag of Community actors having cameos/starring roles in the MCU (usually in films directed by the Russo Brothers), with Danny Pudi as a S.H.I.E.L.D. communications techie in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Jim Rash as the Dean of M.I.T. in Captain America: Civil War, Donald Glover in Spider-Man: Homecoming as Aaron Davis, Brie Larson becoming the titular star of Captain Marvel (2019), and both Ken Jeong and Yvette Nicole Brown appearing in Avengers: Endgame (the former as a security guard and the latter as a S.H.I.E.L.D. secretary for a military base in the 1970s). And with Spider-Man: No Way Home introducing the Multiverse and canonizing Spider-Man 2, Joel McHale's cameo as a banker in that film now counts as well. Additionally, Kumail Nanjiani would later star as Kingo as part of the Ensemble Cast of Eternals.
• In the Season 3 finale, Britta shows her unfamiliarity with the superhero genre by trying to proclaim that her favorite member of the X-Men is "X-Man". Fast-forward to 2021, and Gillian Jacobs would end up getting to voice the superheroine Atom Eve in Invincible.
• From the pilot, the jokes against Ben Affleck can come across as this, given his subsequent critical success with directing The Town and Argo, the latter of which won him a second Oscar for Best Picture. Even at the time the first episode aired, Affleck had already earned acclaim for his direction and writing of Gone Baby Gone, though that wasn't as high-profile as his later efforts.
• In the Season 1 finale, Abed is using a banana to do impressions: (Banana on forehead- Banana Rhino. Banana over top lip- Banana Sam Elliott. Banana over eyes- Banana LeVar Burton.) What makes it perfect is Troy being the only person who laughs at the last one.
• Watching Dean Pelton completely fail at writing and directing a TV advert for Greendale becomes absolutely hysterical after Jim Rash became an Academy Award-winning screenwriter for his work on The Descendants.
• There's two in "Beginner Pottery":
  • From an In-Universe perspective, Pierce being clueless at sailing becomes even funnier when he later admits in "Cooperative Polygraphy" that he was supposed to sail around the world to earn his fortune, but instead cheated and stayed at the same island the whole time, meaning that he never really did much sailing to begin with.
  • From a meta perspective, the crazy pottery teacher describing people acting out the Signature Scene from Ghost (1990) as "ghosting" becomes much funnier after the term of "ghosting" would actually become online vernacular in the latter half of the 2010s (namely, for a person cutting off all communication with a friend or the person they're dating with zero warning or notice beforehand).
• As it turns out, Community wouldn't be the last Dan Harmon-related show to deal heavily in Alternate Timelines populated by potentially "evil" variants of the main protagonists.
• In "Cooperative Escapism in Familial Relations" James Brolin turns up as Jeff's long-absent father. Just over a week earlier, he appeared on Castle as Castle's long-absent father.
• From more of a Black Comedy standpoint, "We're Gonna Finally Be Fine" (the opening musical number from "Biology 101" is Jeff daydreaming a musical style Crowd Song about how much better life's going to be without Pierce in the Study Group) became this after Chevy Chase's departure at the end of Season 4 and Dan Harmon returning as showrunner for Season 5 following his own departure a year earlier.
• Season 3's "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking" features a scene where Britta interacts with Troy's hero, LeVar Burton. Fast forward to 2020 and Gillian Jacobs ends up voicing a character in Star Trek: Lower Decks and a La Forge doll can be seen in that same episode.
• The jokes about Britta smoking pot as well as her hatred of the government makes the fact that in Colorado (the state the show is set in), marijuana is now legal and government regulated.
• After defeating the Glee Club (based on the one from Glee) in Season 1's "Modern Warfare", Jeff yells "Write some original songs!" as a parting shot. This was done to criticize Glee's use of licensed songs. The year after "Modern Warfare" aired, it was announced that Glee would actually be doing an episode with original songs.
• When Jeff runs into Alan in Season 2's "Accounting For Lawyers", he tries to explain his presence at Greendale by claiming to be a teacher. He then muses that's actually worse than the truth and admits he's really a student. In "Repilot", Jeff becomes a teacher at Greendale.
• The Tag in the Season 5 episode "Basic Sandwich" basically being a huge Take That! to NBC. With NBC's subsequent cancellation of the show and Yahoo picking the show up for a sixth season, it means Community essentially left NBC while flipping the bird and screaming "Fuck you!"
• Early on, Annie is established as a recovering Adderall addict who once ran through a plate glass window while yelling "Everyone's a robot!" (as shown in a flashback in Season 4). The Tag for Season 6's "Laws of Robotics and Party Rights" has the committee conduct their meeting with everybody using telepresence robots. Yes, Annie. "Everyone's a robot!"
• Professor Kane complains about how Legos stopped being about piles of bricks and have since become sets based on specific themes and pop-culture tie-ins. A few years later, Alison Brie (Annie) voiced a character in The LEGO Movie and Joel McHale (Jeff) started to appear in commercials for LEGO Dimensions, both of which are based around Lego's specific themes and pop-culture tie-ins.
• At one point of "Accounting For Lawyers", Alan comments that he wants to eat Jeff's brains, then pretends to do so. Three years later, Alan's actor (Rob Corddry) would play a zombie in Warm Bodies and eating brains becomes a plot point in that film. Furthermore, Annie becomes a zombie in "Epidemiology" which aired shortly before her actress, Alison Brie, started dating Dave Franco. Franco also appears in Warm Bodies and his character is killed by a zombie.
• During the Star Wars parody in "For a Few Paintballs More" Abed assumes for himself the role of the team’s Han Solo until the end of the paintball match. Flash-forward to 2016, when Troy’s actor Donald Glover was cast as Han’s best friend Lando Calrissian in Solo.
• "App Development and Condiments" shows Greendale becoming a futuristic dystopia where one's social status is defined by one's ratings in social media. This is even funnier to watch after Black Mirror did an episode about a Crapsaccharine World where the exact same thing happens, especially considering that in that episode, much like Jeff, the protagonist attempts to raise her rank but ends up being thrown in the deep end of the social ladder.
• Troy's bewilderment (and mild jealousy) at Abed's side-adventures becomes this after Season 5 when he goes on an adventure of his own, traveling around the world with his idol LeVar Burton.
• Evil!Jeff's comment that naming a sandwich the "Troy-jan Horse" would just make people think horse meat was in it, from "Advanced Introduction To Finality". Between the episode being filmed in late 2012, and airing in May 2013, the story broke in Europe that horse meat had been included in foods supposedly containing beef.
  • Consider also the Magic Realism dark satire film Sorry to Bother You, in which workers, especially black workers, are turned into horses for exploitation by their white bosses, published in 2018.
• The group end up going to a convention for Inspector Spacetime, a Doctor Who knock-off, and Britta notices that there was a female Inspector, to which Abed comments that no one liked her "not because they are sexist, she sucked." This was a number of years before Doctor Who cast Jodie Whittaker as the first female Doctor, which came with its own fair share of controversy.
• At the end of "Basic Rocket Science", Jeff semi-jokingly congratulates Troy for helping save themselves and Greendale by saying he would recommend him to NASA. Donald Glover would later appear in The Martian as an astrodynamicist who is recruited to help NASA save Mark Watney.
• Jeff's angst about ending up like Pierce or being nor much different than Pierce, now that Joel McHale has played Chevy Chase himself in A Futile and Stupid Gesture.
• "Comparative Religion" has Troy giving the "Forest Whitaker eye". When he does, he makes a face that is very similar to the face Donald Glover makes in his This Is America music video.
• The fact that Patrick Stewart was considered for the role of Pierce creates two examples in Season 2, both due to his portrayal of Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation and that William Shatner played James T. Kirk on Star Trek: The Original Series. First, in "Anthropology 101", Troy posts Pierce's comments on Twitter as "Old White Guy Says Stuff", a parody of Shit My Dad Says. That same year, a television series based on that hit the air with Shatner playing the titular Dad. Then in "Epidemiology", Pierce attends the Halloween party as James T Kirk. If Stewart had been cast, this would have been either an Actor Allusion or hilariously ironic.
• In "Geothermal Escapism", Britta complains that Teen Vogue sets a poor example for girls. The magazine began writing about feminist issues two years later.
• In "Advanced Dungeons And Dragons", Troy says he'd like a tail because "people would know when [he's] happy". Almost 10 years later, he'd voice Simba in The Lion King (2019), a character who, being a lion and all, not only has a tail but whose tail actually jumps up and down and wags whenever he's happy.
  • Not the only episode that looks weird now that Glover has voiced Simba. In "Anthropology 101", Troy says he thinks all cats are female, which now comes off as hilarious considering he's voiced a male cat (albeit a lion rather than a regular housecat, but still).
  • Plus there's the entire existence of "Annie's Boobs". Weird how he goes from owning a monkey to being advised by one◊.
• In "Advanced Criminal Law", Chang compares himself to Mr. Miyagi. In "Queer Studies and Advanced Waxing", he actually plays Miyagi in a stage production of The Karate Kid.
• Britta's sub-plot in "Early 21st Century Romanticism" revolves around her befriending a girl named Page who she believes is a lesbian. In Life Partners, Gillian Jacobs plays a straight girl named Paige whose best friend actually is a lesbian.
• In Season 2's "Intro to Political Science", it ends with a Fake Shemp of Joe Biden sleepily saying he was dreaming of being President of the United States. Come 2020, Biden was actually elected to the office of the Presidency.
• In "Biology 101", Vice Dean Laybourne refers to the dean as a "happy pansexual imp", which is a shockingly accurate description of Blitzo.
• In the series finale, Abed moves to L.A. because he got a job working on a show set in a video game studio. Years later, Danny Pudi would be cast in Mythic Quest, which is indeed set in a video game studio.
• Abed being a huge fan of Inspector Spacetime (a fairly obvious Affectionate Parody of Doctor Who) is extra funny when you know that Danny Pudi went on to star in DuckTales (2017) alongside David Tennant, the Tenth Doctor himself.
• "Basic Intergluteal Numismatics" is an irreverent parody of dark mystery/thrillers about serial killers where the central joke is that the villain commits thoroughly ridiculous crimes involving butts, which the characters all treat completely seriously. Sounds familiar...
• Matt Walsh portraying a Neo-Nazi garden keeper in "Aerodynamics of Gender" is pretty funny to see in the 2020's, after another Matt Walsh rose to prominence with the online right wing movement.
• In the Season 1 finale, when Britta admits to Shirley that she slept with Jeff earlier that semester, she demands to know where and when it happened—and Britta sarcastically replies, "During paintball, in the study room, with Colonel Mustard." The final season would introduce Britta's father George Perry, played by Martin Mull—who played Colonel Mustard in Clue.
• In "Intro to Political Science", Abed nearly gets in trouble with the Secret Service for pirating the film The Last Airbender. Over a decade later, Danny Pudi would be cast in Netflix's live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender TV show.