'Community' Raising Awareness with Animated Shorts (Watch the Teaser!)

Can it be? Is NBC actually trying to make "Community" a success?

In anticipation of the show's late return on March 15, NBC is producing a series of animated shorts starring the cast of the show and animated by the team behind the web series "Ikea Heights."

The idea behind the shorts is to raise awareness about the show in hopes that it will return to higher ratings than what it left with. "Community" has always had critical favor and a dedicated fan base, but the audiences for the show have never been very high. In fact, if "Community" were on any other network, it would likely have been cancelled... but NBC hasn't done the show many favors, giving it a very tough Thursday 8pm time lot and forcing it to compete with shows like "The Big Bang Theory" and "American Idol."

Will this animated stunt work? It's tough to say, as NBC has web content for most of its other comedies ("The Office" and "30 Rock" have had webisodes, for example) and they don't seem to have boosted ratings much. However, if we learned anything from the backlash when NBC pulled the show from the lineup it's that "Community" fans are very active online. These clips might be posted and shared more than those of other, higher-rated NBC shows.

The webisodes haven't hit yet, but you can watch a teaser below. It seems that the characters are fully aware of their animated state, which makes sense in the "Community" universe... after all, they've already been claymated once.