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***OFFICIAL Community Thread*** (1 Viewer)

Dan Harmon had some predictably harsh words for CommunityShortly after his return to Community was made officially official, Dan Harmon said that part of his prep for returning to work would be to finally watch the fourth season—first making the prospect sound like an exercise in morbid curiosity and/or self-torture, before more diplomaticallypromising not to “be a jerk about it” to the writers he’d once worked so closely with. “The worst thing I can do is fart in their direction at all,” Harmon said in his cautiously optimistic youth of 10 days ago—a hopefulness that was slowly eroded, as it was for so many, over the course of 13 episodes, judging by the assessment he gave on this week’s Harmontown podcast:

“I watched season four. I guess I already knew this, but apparently, I’m quite a genius … I think I feel pretty comfortable expressing any kind of 'Eh, not my cup of tea' about it because — this has been expressed a thousand times over — it's obviously not somebody doing what they do and trying very hard to make people happy. It is very much like an impression, and an unflattering one. It’s just 13 episodes of 'Oh, I’m Dan Harmon! Derpy, derpy, durr!
Die Hard
! Durrrrr!' I feel like I'm going back to work tomorrow morning, and I just feel like, 'Do I talk like that?'…. Man, watching those characters without me there is just not ####in' cool, man. It's like flipping through Instagrams and watching your girlfriend just blow a million [other guys]”
As for the two main guys his girlfriend spent the season blowing, replacement showrunners David Guarascio and Moses Port, Harmon acknowledged that “they tried their best” to respond to the demands of Community’s incredibly intense fan base—even if that was probably their downfall:

[They] went to Comic-Con, saw what was going on. People dressed as spacemen and bananas and ####; people going, 'Holy ####, I cut myself every night and watch
Community
.' And they went, '####' and I think they tried their best and I think that was the best idea — not the best idea, as it turns out, but the most admirable kind of impulse. It's like, 'Let's not let these people down. If there's anything else we do, let's not let these people down' …
Harmon also expressed his disappointment with the casting of James Brolin as Jeff Winger’s dad, dashing his long-harbored dream of getting Bill Murray. It's a dream he so refuses to give up on, Harmon says he even left a voicemail for Murray after watching that episode, in what he sarcastically terms “a healthy exercise.”

Still being sarcastic, if engaging in a far less healthy exercise, Harmon then added, “There's something awesome about having all of those preconceived notions ripped away from you. It's exciting. There's something exciting about being held down and watching your family get raped on a beach. It's liberating. It makes you focus on what's important.” Like rescuing your family, then getting their rapists to hire you back, we guess? Probably best to not explore this whole “rape” analogy too much. Suffice it to say, however, this isn't going on the DVD.
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http://www.avclub.com/articles/dan-harmon-had-some-predictably-harsh-words-for-co,99117/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=standard-post:headline:default

 
packersfan said:
Good Posting Judge said:
Harmon's strong creative vision is what makes Community so good, and it's also what leads him to say things like this. I'll take the trade-off.
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I agree. He definitely has an over-inflated view of himself but he created a brilliant TV show.
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Cosign.

He made the show. Simple as that. I guess we'll see if he can bring it back to its former glory or if he was a flash in the pan.

 
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Harmon apologizes.
It Won’t Happen Again Again
My apolotweets might not have fit the scale of the crime for some, so I’m following them up with one of my patented apoloblogs. I want to clarify, I’m apoloblogging in an effort to counteract pain I caused other people. Not because I think what I have to say is important - this is one of those days when I’m definitely fantasizing about getting less attention. And less money, and less oxygen, and, like, getting run over by a bus and stuff. But while I accidentally have your attention, I want to use it to say things I would have and should have said instead of what I did say.

On Sunday night, during my award winning Harmontown podcast (*), which is available for free and, for those interested, is a joyfully overflowing source of opportunities to dislike me, I vented some spleen about the allegedly traumatizing experience of binge-watching a season of TV I didn’t get to control (cue microscopic violin). Laughs were had, I felt better, I cried about my Dad, we played Dungeons and Dragons - it’s a great podcast. It’s not as good as “This Feels Terrible with Erin McGathy” or “The Duncan Trussell Family Hour” but it’s pretty okay if you’re, say, a 25 year old aspiring narcissist whose drive to work is two hours long and thinks stammering is hot.

I went to bed feeling great, woke up and started work on season five of Community with our exciting season five staff. I took them to lunch, checked my tweets, discovered my name in several headlines next to several bad words, and, as usual, it was then that I started to consider how my words might affect other people if viewed as headlines. After five seconds of thinking, I realized, as usual, that other people might be hurt, and that I really need to do this whole “saying things and thinking about other people” cycle in a different order at some point. I think it would make my podcast shorter but I think there’s a lot of listeners that would consider that an upgrade, too.

Here’s a list of people of whom I failed to think in that moment, and the sincerely owed apologies to them.

I am first and foremost sorry to Community fans that got paid nothing to stick by Community and get us to a fifth season only to hear the incoming showrunner say some stuff that felt very un-Community. Even if my goal had been to hurt someone, it would never have been you. What I said was disrespectful to your love for this show, love that I sometimes erroneously equate with validation of me as a person. I am unwittingly and unfortunately infamous for the amount I care about your opinion. I often say that I write in an attempt to “make people like me.” I’m realizing what makes me unlikable is that I haven’t made the leap from “caring what people think about me” to “caring about people.” And let’s face it, if I’m doing this at 40 how cool am I going to get before I die. But I do know, every minute of every day, that I owe you folks what I consider to be my life and guarantee you that every time I’ve pissed you off it’s been on accident. And to keep from hurting you, I’m going to try thinking about you before saying things into microphones. I’m usually okay at it when I’m talking to actual press, because there’s a big visual reminder in the form of a cube on a mic or monkey in a diaper on the table. But when you’re listening to Harmontown, or, worse yet, reading transcripts from Harmontown, you’re catching me in unforgivably human moments. Obviously the solution is to stop talking about my job in my podcast until production is safely complete. That will protect the show you love, and your love of it, from the creator with the Mouth from PR Hell. I will do this. But more importantly, I am sorry.

Next I want to apologize to the people that did get paid to work on that season, but not enough: the cast and crew. I get personal value out of being as honest as possible, but, honestly, how honest was what I said? It was dishonest to imply that something you worked on was as hard to watch as my family being assaulted. I was riffing and tried to turn darkness into levity through shock and hyperbole. I was very much not thinking about anyone but myself while watching that season, which was the crime. I hope over time you’ll forgive me. I wasn’t thinking about your contribution or describing it. I was just indulging my petty feelings about being left out. It seemed kind of funny at the time because it seemed at the time like I was the only person with feelings. Because my head was up my ###. Again, it’s been up there 40 years so it would be dishonest to promise it’s coming out, but what I can promise is that I’ll stop talking about the show without thinking of you. You second, fans first. I think that’s how you’d want it.

Thirdly, because they got paid more, but still not enough, the season 4 writers. I’m sorry I pooped on your work. You had to do something nobody should have to attempt, and you had the option of doing it the lazy way or the sellout way and you clearly did what you did because you were thinking of the fans. There was some amazing stuff in there. Funny jokes. I liked the “Hogan’s Villains” line. The idea that in Germany, people watch Hogan’s Heroes, but they call it Hogan’s Villains, is seriously so funny I had to rewind it a couple times to finish laughing. I will apologize to the Germans later. Season 4 writers: Thank you and I’m sorry. As I went on to say in my podcast, the creatives are not the bad guys…I shouldn’t be letting an inhuman system that doesn’t care about humans enough turn humans against humans. Especially us. Don’t tell anyone I said this but all writers are better people than all non-writers. Nobody read that unless you’re a writer. I broke a code when I judged the work of writers with whom I wasn’t in the same trenches. I’ll suffer for it because I’ll be looking for a job soon enough and nobody will want to work with Judgy McPsycho Van Crieswhenhetypes. So I hope my ten seconds of, as the kids say, “butthurt” comedy was worth it to me, and I’ll see you in Hell, where, don’t tell anybody I said this but is where I believe all writers go because we make God jealous.

Almost lastly, I have to address this “rape joke” concept. I have to address it because it looks like if I don’t say anything, it could send the wrong message to people with an understandable passion for the subject. This is a subject that is, and should be, insanely volatile and provocative, because it combines the words “rape” and “joke.” It puts them right next to each other, it’s like putting a running chainsaw next to a puppy, it’s just not something you can walk past without getting disturbed and invested. Does anyone think rape is funny? I hope not. Do we become more progressive culturally through the mitigation of inappropriate language? I don’t know, it’s sure worth continued discussion, if you feel strongly one way or the other you should come up on stage at the next Harmontown. In the mean time, I am deeply sorry to anyone I hurt by using the word “rape” in a comedic context. I am sorry to anyone I hurt by conjuring the concept of rape in a metaphor about my stupid hurt feelings. As you saw above, unless you skimmed this blog entry for the word “rape,” I was not thinking about the impact of my words on the people that love Community and work on it. So I hope you can believe me when I tell you I was definitely not thinking about the impact of that word on people that are currently seeking to get it out of comedic contexts. I’m very sorry to have hurt and frustrated you and I will definitely be swayed from the use of that word in comedic contexts because I don’t like hurting people and as an added bonus, I don’t like getting yelled at on Twitter. Especially when the people yelling have phrases like “rape joke” on their side. It’s kind of hard to think of oneself as being “pro rape joke.” Don’t want to be that guy. Done and done.

Oh, on the politically correct side, I just remembered something else. I think when I did my impression of Season 4’s impression of me, I said “durpy durpy dur, I’m Dan Harmon,” which I think I saw someone point out is language used to dehumanize the developmentally disabled, and that’s not cool, I shouldn’t have done that.

Okay, wow, that was a lot of apologizing. That was not a short blog post. Because that’s how sorry I am. Also I love talking about myself, but, trust me, this has been more pain than pleasure for the guy that made you feel bad. Now I’m going to get back to conceptualizing with the writers about season 5 and, I hope, achieve a heightened level of actual empathy in the bargain.

Love,

A Remorseful Friend

(*) Harmontown is currently award-free but I don’t want to have to edit this post later.
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Returns tonight.

Harmon running it, hopefully its funny again.

Apparently Chevy is out? And Troy is only around for the first couple of episodes :(

 
Yup. Chevy got canned in the middle of last season, and since Hrmon didn't exactly like him (plus NBC had to choose between Harmon and Chevy last season and they chose poorly) there was no way he was coming back. Shame Troy didn't sign on for a full season. But given that the show has been constantly on the edge of cancellation, he chose to do other things like the Lazarus movie.

 
Two thumbs up tonight imo. The "repilot" was very well done. The timing/pacing is back, as is the funny side of self-deprecating. Harmon couldn't have handled an awkward situation any better.

The second episode had the first moment of uncontrollable laughter for me probably since Harmon left. Dani Pudi on the desk "I'm a sexy cat" actually had me in tears.

:thumbup: :thumbup:

 
Troy being pissed at Zac Braff had me laughing too, but I wouldn't have got it if I didn't know already that he didn't do the full season.

 
You all watching this? Brilliant reboot. Harmon is systematically re-inserting the old characters, demolishing the poorer direction the series took in his absence, and roundhouse kicking to the face what should be awkward situations that a lesser show would be doing it's best to pretend don't exist. Fabulous episode last night imo.

 
Jaysus said:
What was last night's episode a spoof of?
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Several serial killer procedural movies, but particularly those of David Fincher.

The title sequence was a riff on Red Dragon. The music playing while they did the Facebook investigation came from Se7en. The note at the beginning was a riff on Zodiac. The visual style of the episode was pretty much a riff on Fincher.

EDIT: There were also riffs on the current television trope of the mildly autistic detective who is incredibly observant. Abed makes the comment about how he's "using a condition as a procedural device" and then deletes episodes of The Bridge, Hannibal, and (I think) Elementary off his DVR at the end.

 
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Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
Jaysus said:
What was last night's episode a spoof of?
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Several serial killer procedural movies, but particularly those of David Fincher.

The title sequence was a riff on Red Dragon. The music playing while they did the Facebook investigation came from Se7en. The note at the beginning was a riff on Zodiac. The visual style of the episode was pretty much a riff on Fincher.

EDIT: There were also riffs on the current television trope of the mildly autistic detective who is incredibly observant. Abed makes the comment about how he's "using a condition as a procedural device" and then deletes episodes of The Bridge, Hannibal, and (I think) Elementary off his DVR at the end.
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What did he say, "Terrible writing...painful." I cracked up...

 
This is basically the only show I actively wait to see the TV ratings for every week, since it's always on the verge of cancellation but always gets just enough viewers to come back (#sixseasonsandamovie)

 
Northern Voice said:
This is basically the only show I actively wait to see the TV ratings for every week, since it's always on the verge of cancellation but always gets just enough viewers to come back (#sixseasonsandamovie)
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I really think the show is just too smart for the casual TV viewer. I realize how pretentious and arrogant that sounds but I honestly believe it. It's a much more layered show than your typical sitcom and then when you factor in all the pop-culture references and things put into a typical episode it may be a little too overwhelming for a lot of people.

 
packersfan said:
Northern Voice said:
This is basically the only show I actively wait to see the TV ratings for every week, since it's always on the verge of cancellation but always gets just enough viewers to come back (#sixseasonsandamovie)
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I really think the show is just too smart for the casual TV viewer. I realize how pretentious and arrogant that sounds but I honestly believe it. It's a much more layered show than your typical sitcom and then when you factor in all the pop-culture references and things put into a typical episode it may be a little too overwhelming for a lot of people.
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I think the surrealism and how "different" it is are detractors too

We have a public conditioned to shows that are penis joke-laugh track loops...

 
Rove! said:
packersfan said:
Northern Voice said:
This is basically the only show I actively wait to see the TV ratings for every week, since it's always on the verge of cancellation but always gets just enough viewers to come back (#sixseasonsandamovie)
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I really think the show is just too smart for the casual TV viewer. I realize how pretentious and arrogant that sounds but I honestly believe it. It's a much more layered show than your typical sitcom and then when you factor in all the pop-culture references and things put into a typical episode it may be a little too overwhelming for a lot of people.
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I think the surrealism and how "different" it is are detractors too
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I agree. Last night's episode is a great example of a show that was obviously going to be different, was making every attempt to be different and doesn't care if people don't get it because it is different. I think that's one of the things Harmon did so well and why last season felt so off. The network tried to make the show into something it was never meant to be last season. Harmon's return has fixed all that.

 
Great show again last night. Once again for the first half of the show I was laughing so hard I was actually tearing up.

Harmon is brilliant, and that's it.

 
Rumor is that Community is already very close to a sixth season pick-up.

"And a movie!!!!"

Last night's episode worked for me in a way that every other attempt to recapture Modern Warfare with other paintball episodes haven't.

That's two excellent episodes in a row that explicitly call back to earlier high points (Cooperative Polygraphy obviously calling back to Cooperative Calligraphy).

 
The last two episodes finally hit it's groove. The first couple were more about damage control and fixing stuff...it kinda dragged and felt forced.

But these two really knocked it out of the park...Community is back.

But for how long?

 
That episode clicked on every level for me. From the game of thrones spoiler subplot to the labyrinth jokes and the absurdity of trying to get mundane things (hanging a form board) accomplished in a workplace.

Plus I'm excited by the increased presence of the faculty. Best option for filling the space left by Troy.

 
Last night's episode is the kind of episode that appeals to a large segment of the fan base, but maybe gets lost on the general public. I think it was a brilliant episode and I will need to re watch to deconstruct it.

 
Rove! said:
Last night's episode is the kind of episode that appeals to a large segment of the fan base, but maybe gets lost on the general public. I think it was a brilliant episode and I will need to re watch to deconstruct it.
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I gave you 3 meowmeowbeenz for that statement.

 
Rove! said:
Last night's episode is the kind of episode that appeals to a large segment of the fan base, but maybe gets lost on the general public. I think it was a brilliant episode and I will need to re watch to deconstruct it.
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:thumbup: Real nerds watch Community.

 
packersfan said:
(HULK) said:
packersfan said:
It's amazing to think anybody believed this show could work without Dan Harmon.
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I hope its doing well in the ratings. This show season is definitely 5 meowmeowbeenz worthy. Last season was like only 2 or 3 meowmeowbeenz.
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I haven't checked but I'm assuming it's getting destroyed by The Big Bang Theory.
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Sadly yes. Horrible time slot. I'd say most of Community's fans are also BBT fans. But BBT is your typical formulaic CBS comedy, so it gets tons of other viewers as well.

I will say I'm impressed most by the fact that I haven't missed Troy or Pierce.

 
Rayderr said:
packersfan said:
(HULK) said:
packersfan said:
It's amazing to think anybody believed this show could work without Dan Harmon.
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I hope its doing well in the ratings. This show season is definitely 5 meowmeowbeenz worthy. Last season was like only 2 or 3 meowmeowbeenz.
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I haven't checked but I'm assuming it's getting destroyed by The Big Bang Theory.
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Sadly yes. Horrible time slot. I'd say most of Community's fans are also BBT fans. But BBT is your typical formulaic CBS comedy, so it gets tons of other viewers as well.

I will say I'm impressed most by the fact that I haven't missed Troy or Pierce.
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I like The Big Bang Theory a lot. I think it's a very funny show plus Kaley Cuoco :wub:

I usually DVR both shows but if I'm gonna watch one "live" it's almost always Community.

I agree with you that Troy and Pierce haven't been missed. It does help that Jonathan Banks is pretty much awesome in everything he does.

 
I dislike BBT. Granted, I only watched the first couple of episodes ages ago, but it seemed like standard formulaic laugh track crap that is everywhere. I don't get why its a big hit.

 
I generally don't like the wackier episodes as much as the ones when they are just hanging out but that one was pretty much genius.

 
Thought it was just an OK episode by this show's standards, but the Dean's rap at the start and Gilligan's scene at the end were great.

Who was that playing Gilligan's wife?

 
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