This surely created a certain extra level of stress for everyone involved with the show, but one way that stress was relieved was with the series regularly hinting at the looming possibility of cancelation.
Sometimes it’s subtle (like when Abed became distressed about Cougar Town going on hiatus in the Season 3 premiere, or starting proclaiming that The Cape should get six seasons and a movie in “Paradigms Of Human Memory”), and other times its overt (like the “Depends on what fails” tag at the end of Season 5’s “Basic Sandwich.”)
Despite inspiring a devoted fanbase, Community wasn’t a supremely popular show when it first aired on NBC, and the low ratings regularly left it as a potential candidate for the chopping block at the end of every season – or “on the bubble” to use industry lingo.