Flashmob Successes, Yoplait/General Mills campaign, WeLoveSony, Blanket Fort

Dear Community Fans,

Merry Changmas! http://bit.ly/sKxh78
If you don't want to read the details on our zombie war, please scroll down 6 paragraphs until you see bold text and TL;DR. Also, congratulations to Donald Glover/Childish Gambino for his many accomplishments!

Zombie War Update: We ran a tight race against the zombie hordes (http://t.co/Qlu8DHRp). I talked smack at @TeamReedus and also absolutely confused him by saying, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smells like elderberries! I taunt you, sir! BRAINS! BRAAAAAINS!" I then sent my own confused tweet to Nielsen and BBDO; we can't run a tight race against Walking Dead fans if there aren't any of us. Many thanks to Curt Wagner at the Chicago Tribune (@showpatrol) for giving us a zombie war for Christmas!

Tonight's news (12/28): we're tossing around the idea of a Guinness world record blanket fort at Univeral Orlando theme park in Florida, to coincide with National Blanket Fort Day (thank you @SpinolaG). Because there are a lot of us, don't worry; we'll raise the money to RENT a place to do this if we have to!

Also, this: http://twitpic.com/7zz3xo
In other news, there is an LA Flashmob: LA Flashmob FB page and Craigslist page
Thurs, 1/19/12, 4:30pm, Universal Citywalk, singing Baby Boomer Santa. I didn't know about it, but I fully support it. Also, I don't need to be a spokesperson. Anyone who loves the show can speak for all of us. Just try to stay positive and not slam NBC, other networks, or other shows, OK? Go West Coast! You're up next! This is so cool! :)

I learn a LOT of things from the Chuck campaign. They used to run flashmobs; one was Zachary Levi running a mob of London fans to a Subway. You would have to clear it with the store, but how about running a mob into a grocery store, buying Yoplait and General Mills products (Cheerios, Progresso, Muir Glen, et al): www.generalmills.com/brands. Like I said, some stores are funny with this, so you might end up juggling yogurts in the parking lot or somewhere else. I give a lot of love and respect to the Chuck community. They ran a good campaign and got a couple of extra years for a beautiful show. I love them.

(12/23/11, 6:18pm): Hulu just named Community the #1 comedy! A Hulu subscription is a nice last-minute present: http://www.hulu.com/plus?src=topnav

Send some nice hand-written letters to CEO Bob Greenblatt: Robert Greenblatt, c/o NBC Universal, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City CA 91608

Quick note: I want NBC, Sony, Yoplait, and General Mills ALL to be #1! Mainly NBC! Also, we're buying shiz like crazy, so please don't overtly compare us to the Occupy movement, OK? We love those guys, and DON'T want to get on their bad side!

TL;DR Summary for the time-challenged!

1. Oh Canada! Vancity, you are the best!
2. TV Guide is Awesome!
3. Buy @GeneralMills and @YoplaitYogurt, either a little or a lot, for donation or for yourself, OR do a flashmob based on their products (scroll back 4 paragraphs for more); tweet/FB/mail. www.generalmills.com/brands
4. Go see Hugo in 3D again. @SonyPictures filmed the flashmob, OMG. \brainfreeze/
5. Say hi to Glenn at the NBC store on FB (filmed the mob): http://www.facebook.com/NBCUniversalStore?sk=wall
6. Keep Glenn hopping; buy ALL THE THINGS (they keep selling out, yay!): http://www.nbcuniversalstore.com/?v=nbc_community
7. Next up: Guinness World Record Blanket Fort, hoping for one at NBC headquarters; Leno/Fallon could wear PJs and pillow fight with us.
8. VOTE in all the polls, especially for Jeff Winger, Josh Holloway, and Jeff + Annie: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/f0kjr6

There's a lot of information to cover here. First, though, I'd like to give a shout out to the two lovely ladies who traveled all the way from Vancouver for the flash mob! I didn't get to hug you goodbye because of interviews and it makes me sick to my stomach; please tweet me at @violincatherine and I'll give you a virtual hug, okay! Oh Canada, indeed! You guys also get the prize for the longest commute. Everyone who participated, especially @sararoseex3, cocreator @EvilTroyAndAbed, and all the participants online with the #OChristmasTroy hashtag and on Facebook, you did good. Real good! Thank you so much!

Max from TV guide filmed the event: TV Guide is Awesome!

Successes:

• TV Guide is a rockstar; where can I buy extra Community cover issues of the magazine?
• Sony filmed the ENTIRE THING. I've been asking everyone to see Hugo in 3D by @SonyPictures, and now I'm going to see it again. They interviewed all of us, and followed us as we went into the NBC Store and giggled over NBC Community merchandise. Guys, they're listening to us. Tweet them your thanks, show them love, buy Sony stuff, go see Hugo, ALL OF IT. They may have the power to save the show, and (if you have any spare cash left after buying some Yoplait/General Mills food), it might be nice to show some Community love!
• Glenn, the manager at the NBC Store at 30 Rock, was SO nice to us. He filmed the flashmob and put it on the NBC Store FB page, so please comment on the page and share it everyone; we can help NBC with their new media too: http://www.facebook.com/NBCUniversalStore
• More about Glenn: he gave everyone a Human Being keychain and magnet. I actually gave him my tree and goatee while Sony was filming me. How's that for an alternate timeline, y'all? If you're not getting chills, you aren't a Human Being! My Troy and Abed mug and #AnniesMove shirt actually made me cry happy tears when I woke up today. So, Glenn also runs the online store. He REALLY appreciates us. We keep buying up all the merchandise; they've sold out of Troy and Abed mugs now 3 times. I'm telling you, NBC had to approve this, so I see it as a BIG WIN. Keep up like the Bieber Army and buy ALL THEIR STUFF, ok? http://www.nbcuniversalstore.com/?v=nbc_community 
• Re: Britta Bot and other figurines. Don't take any of this as sarcasm, I want NBC to be #1 and I want to help them. Pure fan demand in the NBC Store led them to bring figurines in the 30 Rock store for the 1st time. Note: this is during a hiatus, and we are so crazy that we're forcing them to put merch where it wasn't before. They also keep selling out online. They can barely keep up!
• I wore my @YoplaitYogurt shirt with pride yesterday. I told everyone who would listen about them, and the initiative to buy @YoplaitYogurt or donate food purchased from @GeneralMills brands. 
• I made a $60 donation to http://www.serenityhousenj.org/ the other day of @GeneralMills food, and GENERAL MILLS TWEETED ME for Christmas! Is it sad to admit that I cried more happy tears when that happened? OK, maybe it's sad, but it's true. Go General Mills!
• If we're going to get a corporate sponsorship, we really need to back it up with revenue. So the @GeneralMills tweet adds ALL their food to the campaign. Here are the many brands of General Mills, and I would highly suggest adding their cereals/soups/yogurt (also Muir Glen and Cascadian Farms) to your weekly shopping list: www.generalmills.com/brands. Donations are higher dollar amounts and good karma, but even a carton of Yoplait helps right now. @nannysox suggested we all pick one day a week to do this; any votes for Yoplait/General Mills love? I have weird hours as a musician, so I buy food on weird days and hours. But that's still a great idea, so please let me know! Take pictures, tweet them, send letters to: General Mills mailing address/phone: 3007 Stephens Boulevard  Joplin, MO 64804-3368, (417) 782-0300 (can address to Yoplait Yogurt, c/o General Mills, also)
• Community fans are the best in the world, period. Everyone who showed up yesterday was so bright, cheerful, happy, and willing to help out in any way. That brings me to:
• EVERYONE is down with a blanket fort. I'd like to do it in a month (which means indoors). My #1 dream, because I want NBC to be #1 again and I WANT to give them all this free PR, is an attempt at a Guinness World Record for blanket forts at NBC Headquarters. PJs and pillow fights would be required. I would hope for Leno/Fallon bits, but just the fort itself and the fans would be enough.
• Application for new category in Guinness World Records: http://member.guinnessworldrecords.com/member/is_it_a_record.aspx
• Glenn at @nbcstore gives me hope that NBC is listening to us. They deserve to be #1 again; they have SO MANY great shows that we can't afford to lose.
• If NBC is not receptive, I told the Sony crew that we would be happy to take over an empty backlot somewhere. A Florida fan, @r3g1t0dd, suggested Universal Orlando. Can you imagine a World Record blanket fort and overnight pillow fight plus pajama party at Universal? Road trip, baby! 
• If NBC and Sony don't bite, we can try General Mills headquarters.
• If General Mills doesn't bite, we'll do it ourselves! I was suggesting a dairy farm in upstate NY (yes, cliche), but if it's January, Momma Bear Yours Truly ain't signing up for outside. We'd have to find a huge indoor structure that would have the permits (and fire regulations) in place for extensive use of blankets and smashed pillows.
• Because we want to include EVERYONE, we have another blanket fort initiative running. The beautiful Spanish @be_cooky is creating a collage of blanket forts from across the world. Build one wherever you are, take a picture of it, and post it on FB at http://www.facebook.com/events/178705898894815/ or tweet @be_cooky. If you can take a video, send that too!
• Also, the beautiful TV Guide support comes from us voting Community onto their magazine cover as fan favorite. Keep voting in all active polls, and WIN ALL THE THINGS (shout out to @TweetingKerry)! The more things we win, the more press and the more leverage our show has, so:
• VOTE in all the current polls: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/equelg
• I've LITERALLY been up until 4 or 7 in the morning, every night, since the hiatus was called. I've got to stop procrastinating. Christmas is here, so I have to do a bunch of Christmas things with my family, and then I'm off on vacation. I'm trying to get this blog post in before I go off radar for a while. Keep up the good work, y'all! They are listening, they are talking about it, and we have their attention, so keep the momentum rolling with General Mills, Yoplait, Sony, the NBC Store, and finding ways on FB and twitter to promote the blanket fort idea. I'm behind y'all one hundred percent. 
• I know I'm a wordy girl. There are more ideas on earlier blog posts; if you see something you want to reinstate as an idea, please let me know. If there's something that you want to see up here, please tweet me and I'll put it up too, OK? This blog is for YOU, the fans. Speaking of which:
• @GuillaumeElleb from Belgium (OMG I love Belgium) has a great idea for a GreendaleCC page on FB, done as if it were a real college. We could give ourselves IDs, make up new crazy faculty, trade studying tips, stalk the Dean and Jeff, and follow Abed as Batman/Cougartown extra, trade Jeff and Annie googly eyes reports. I could spend an hour making up Dean Pelton behind the scenes stories. Anyone want to do join us if he sets this up? I absolutely love it! It gives us yet another productive and funny thing to do, too!
• You can always right-click on a show in itunes and send it as a gift. All you need is an email address! Speaking of which, I have a few copies of Holiday Regional Music (S3E10) left to give out. Tweet/DM me your email address to @violincatherine and I'll send you a copy. There are 10 left! If we all did this, well, we'd have less crud at the top of the itunes list, that's for sure! Who watches some of this other nonsense?
• I don't need to be the official spokesperson of the Community movement. (OMG someone said we're older than they thought when they saw the video, but I'm like, dude, I wanna buy an electric car and @artofkuzma hubby has a $6000 printer; BITE ME.) Others have been here longer. On the next go-round, I invite someone else to take the mic, OK? I love all of you guys. The flashmob was the best Christmas present I've ever had, and I'm officially designating it as our Christmas present back to the staff, crew, and actors of NBC Community. Happy Holidays!

Love,
Catherine
@violincatherine

(P.S. - It was funny, but NBC Security and the NYPD asked us to move a couple of times. I shook their hands, introduced myself, and said, OK, whatever you want! I wished everyone a Merry Christmas and thanked them for protecting us from pickpockets. Thank you again to all of NBC, the Rockefeller security team, and the NYPD! We love you! The only incident was: I think the Troy and Abed mugs sold out AGAIN! xoxo CB)
 (P.PS. - The Daily News hit: Ethan Sacks is a Rockstar
Hollywood Reporter hit: We Love Jethro Nededog
My favorite blog post: We Love Cult is VERY cool
Also, I saw this as I left NYC: Joel McHale's 50 Foot Head
There are others, but I have SO MUCH to do. Check my twitter feed or the #savecommunity hashtag for more. Happy Holidays! -CB)
(P.P.P.S. - When I said I am not a trained person in the video, I really meant that I'm not an actor. I respect the time and training it takes to master acting as a craft. The work the cast does is SEAMLESS and perfect. So, it's better that I sing and hold a Christmas tree, and have 100 beautiful fans show up with me, than make you miserable with my acting in a skit. If anyone ever wants some violin music as part of some film or happening, I HAVE spent my whole life busting my a$$ to learn the violin, and I play any style. I want to keep the focus on the show and on the other fans, so maybe as some background music? I also offer my services as a pillow fighting jedi. xoxo CB)
(PPPPS - Jeez, I really am wordy. The flashmob was one of the 10 best days of my life. Playing with kd Lang/Willie Nelson, some spiritually beautiful days, getting married, having a violin student study for 6 months and play at her daughter's wedding: these all come before. But not by much. I cried when the Milady tweets started coming in. I was in the NBC store, and I started sobbing until the mascara was done-zo. If I haven't thanked you yet for your support and love, it's because I'm emailing the press behind the scenes and haven't had a chance to scroll back. Also, this flashmob was never about me. But the love kept me going. I had to explain to other fans and bystanders that Milord/Milady came from the Jack Black episode when tears were running down my face, and that Milady is the highest honor anyone can bestow. Everyone laughed at me, and tears were running down my face. Outside, someone asked me the name of the Pop Pop character and I said Magnitude without missing a beat. This PS is for all the fans, and it's personal only when it comes to you. Dan Harmon is Justin Bieber, but YOU are BATMAN. I really do love you guys with all my heart. xoxo -CB)