Avengers: Endgame has two Community cameos - here's why. Although MCU fans generally expect a cameo here and there, Avengers: Endgame pulled out all the stops with surprise returning Marvel characters and some unexpected faces. Perhaps the most perplexing were Ken Jeong and Yvette Nicole Brown, better known as Mr. Chang and Shirley on Community.
Some of the Avengers: Endgame cameos make immediate sense. It was well known the film would feature the Stan Lee's final MCU cameo, director Joe Russo completed a hat-trick of appearances as a support group member (and first openly gay character in the series), and many VFX artists got namedrops on the list of the Vanished.
Avengers: Endgame also featured brief appearances from Ken Jeong as a security guard who helps Ant-Man out of a garage and Yvette Nicole Brown as 1970s military personnel who reports a time-traveling Captain America and Iron-Man for their suspicious actions. This pair will be well known from Community, and that's actually why they're here. Before taking over directorial duties at Marvel, the Russo brothers directed and acted as executive producers on the TV sitcom.
Although Community was canceled by network television and then left to die when it moved to Yahoo Screen, which got shut down, it remains a cult classic. Seeing the actors pop up in the MCU is a nice reminder of how much fans loved them in the TV series that continues to live on in re-runs.
Indeed, this isn't the first Community cameo in the MCU: Abed actor Danny Pudi was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Jim Rash another Dean in Captain America: Civil War, and Donald Glover Aaron Davis in Spider-Man: Homecoming. More accidentally, Captain Marvel actress Brie Larsen was Abed's girlfriend for three episodes on the show (in season 4).
Outside of the Community connection, Lee's final appearance is probably the most meaningful of the cameos in Endgame. It occurs in the 1970s with Lee playing a driver in a car that has a bumper sticker with the words "Nuff said," on it, something he often said in his "Stan's Soapbox" Marvel Comics column. With fans now realizing that this is his last cameo in the movies ever, it's a bittersweet moment, but at least they can go back and watch all of his cameos in previous movies, as well as see newly-released behind-the-scenes footage from those cameos.
