"Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" is the eleventh episode of the second season of the American comedy television series Community.

The script was completed within a few weeks in August 2010; the animation process began on October 18 and finished on December 8, the day before the episode premiered.

He announces this in the cafeteria to the study group's concern and runs through the parking lot, jumping on cars while singing about Christmas until he is tasered.

In psychology professor Ian Duncan's (John Oliver) office, Jeff (Joel McHale) and Britta (Gillian Jacobs) express concern at Abed's risk of expulsion.

Shirley protests at her character and is ejected by Duncan, who summons a remote-control Christmas pterodactyl; Jeff is eaten by insects called "humbugs" for being sarcastic.

Duncan seeks to discover Abed's repressed memories but ends up revealing his own childhood, where his father was absent at Christmas.

The group return to the study room and join Abed in his dorm, watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

[4] The viewer seeing stop motion through Abed's perspective allowed it to exist within the show's reality and for characters to later refer to its events.

[4] The main characters are seen in live action in the reflection of a television screen; Chase insisted on wearing socks in the shot, despite his animated counterpart's bare feet beneath his orthopedic cast.

[10] It also shows a live action scene that makes the point that "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" is largely about the characters imagining a story around their study group table.

[8] The episode premiered contemporaneously with "Road to the North Pole", a Christmas special of Family Guy—the show Gaspin had initially compared Community to.

[4] Harmon was inspired by the melancholia in Charles Schultz's Peanuts holiday specials, seeing it as a crucial part of Christmas.

[4][1][15] The series' other Christmas episodes—"Comparative Religion", "Regional Holiday Music" and "Intro to Knots"—have similar themes, but are more light-hearted.

[13] He has been previously shown with the autistic trait of struggling to understand societal rules, but his interpretation of life as television aligns his perspective with the viewer.

[20] The study group members are removed by Abed one by one, followed by a brief moral song, like Willy Wonka's actions in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964).

[21][15] In its original broadcast on December 9, 2010, "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" was viewed by an estimated 4.29 million viewers, with a Nielsen rating of 1.4 in the 18–49 demographic.

[24] In 2019, Raja Sen of Mint wrote that it was one of the series' first and bravest risks, creating a story that was "knowingly ironic and yet committedly, achingly sincere".

[19] Maggie Furlong commented in TV Squad that the episode was "as touching and poignant as this show has ever been", maintaining its characters' believability and allowing the viewer to see Abed's "unconscious vision of his friends".

[27] James Poniewozik of Time found the episode archetypal of the show's "strong sense of play and joy in the act of invention" and its actors' "distinctive postures and expressions", which are recreated in stop motion.

Poniewozik praised that the episode was not framed as a dream and that study room can briefly be seen in stop motion as characters enter and exit.

[14] Den of Geek's Emma Matthews appraised the soundtrack as "pitched to perfection" and the animation as "full of fantastic visual touches".

[28] Adam Quigley wrote in /Film that the episode is "endlessly reverent parody that never feels overly calculated", with "undeniably joyous and exciting" animation and sound design.

St. James reviewed that the episode's "raw, emotional moments" were "surprisingly dark" and that Pierce's return and the final song were moving.