Dan Harmon

The one that immediately leaps to mind is that I wanted Richard Ayoade (director of the Dinner with Andre episode) to return, this time on camera, as an oversea friend of Abed's that he met in an Inspector Spacetime forum (or subreddit). I just couldn't resist the meta-liciousness of seeing Ayoade and Pudi on screen together, and the non-meta, perfectly standard sitcom-liciousness of giving Abed a friend of whom Troy would have good reason to be jealous. I will say, though, that we explored many of the aspects of Troy and Abed's relationship in the Civil War episode that we would've explored in an episode like that. Still, it would have been pretty fun.

I don't know if this is good news or bad news but I tried not to think too far ahead too specifically. I knew that we had to generally get the audience used to the idea that Greendale, the campus itself, was NOT NECESSARILY INSTRUMENTAL to the long term viability of the show. That's why we did episodes like Remedial Chaos and Annie's Move and Abed as Batman, that's why we moved Annie into Abed and Troy's apartment and put Shirley and Pierce in business together...because the simple fact, to me, was that as much as we loved Greendale, we had to "complete" the story of Jeff Winger getting his four year degree. You can actually see one my "fourth season" ideas getting bumped up into the end of season three, because Jeff Winger has to decide, at the end of season three, that even though he's endured Greendale for the express purpose of getting his old life back, in the end, he has to choose Greendale over his old life, because Greendale has made him a better person. The fact that it happened at the end of season three is because at the time of writing the script, I had a sneaking suspicion that either the show or its creator would not be back for season four.

I think the Dungeons and Dragons episode in season 2.

I guess the first season's paintball episode. The actors' opinion of what episodes were fun to shoot would be the more weighty opinion. It was the actors' set, it was their pain we were farming. I was often in the writers room or edit bay while their biggest triumphs were happening. I had the luxury of being able to focus on writing and editing because we had good directors and brilliant actors and the best crew in TV.

I'll answer the last part first: I feel like Joel would come out swinging and start winning right away, but he'd tire himself out chasing Gillian and Donald around the ring. Once Joel got to his exhaustion point, things would get bloody and ugly for a while, with Danny doing a lot of horrible things that nobody knew he could do - I just have that sense that Danny would suddenly bust out a crazy eyeball eating maneuver he learned in some class - but in the end, Yvette would reveal that she had lined the whole room with explosives and she would emerge victorious. From the room. But Chevy would be behind the door with a bat and take her out. Then he'd collapse because that's a lot of bat swinging for a legend his age. So I guess Alison would win because nobody would have felt good about punching her.

It wouldn't do the show or me any good to be invited back to the show in "any capacity." If they thought I was bad at being in charge, they'd be even more disappointed in my ability to be not-in-charge. I'm a zero-sum personality with very little staff writing experience. I like to create stuff and if people don't like it I like to try to figure out how to make it better but I'm not great at helping other people make their stuff. Nobody wants Dan Harmon prowling the hallways while they're trying to make Community. It would slow everything down and frustrate everyone because people would feel obligated to mince words and be political in their handling of my opinions and blah blah blah. So no.

yeah but don't forget it's all about reach in a fist fight. Joel's six foot four.

I'm going to wait a few episodes, maybe the whole season, and see how other people react. If people love it, then I'll be able to safely watch it with an open, friendly heart, because the whole point is whatever makes the audience happy. If they say it's good, it's good, and I can watch it and even say it's good. But I'm not going to be part of any campaign to convince anyone - me or others - of anything, good or bad. I've received a lot of advice from a lot of creatives that in a situation like this, it's best for everyone on all sides that I make a clean break and not look back. I'll be one of the very last people you hear weighing in on New Community. It's the most practical, healthy decision I can make for its audience. Here's an important related question: DO I HOPE IT'S GOOD? The honest answer is yes.

oh my god you're actually right. Jim Rash would pull some stuff.

don't underestimate the extent to which: #1) the actors are fantastic and own their characters, which are what you truly love and #2) Andy Bobrow and Matt Murray and Megan Ganz and a slew of talented writers are working over there. It could be fine. It could be BETTER WITHOUT ME.

I picture him entering the fray dressed like Tina Turner in Thunderdome

I'm sure there's lots of things we talked about over three years that will be useable by the new guys. And yes, it's their property to use if that's the case. One thing I'm sure will happen in season 4 is Jeff will meet his Dad, because we were going to do it in season 3 but then one of the NBC execs started saying "just make sure Jeff meeting his Dad isn't a dark story," and I didn't want to write one of the series' most important stories under that hex, so I said, "let's just punt that story to season 4." And we ended season 3 with Jeff googling his Dad, so...!

what he said

actually I like your idea better

A mysterious gas cloud of alien origin envelopes the Earth, turning all womens' hair red. Like season 1 Scully red. The gas cloud also has a sterilization effect on all the men, except for one fat writer with a small wiener. Women, however, discover they are able to retain their fertility by dressing like it's 1986, and the salvation of the species begins in a giant room lined with black fur.

nice

1) I co-created (with Justin Roiland) a 22 minute animated pilot for Adult Swim called Rick and Morty. It's been delivered and it's great, and it should get an episode order soon. Fingers crossed, all signs are good. I have also just signed blind deals to write comedy pilots for FOX and CBS, and I'm doing a lot of remodeling on my home. Oh, and I'm doing a KICKSTARTER FOR A STOP MOTION FILM written by CHARLIE freaking KAUFMAN to which you should pledge.

2) Not as much as I'd like. I'm not a real go-getter socially. I love them all - yes, even Chevy - and owe them anything they'd ask, in exchange for giving me the most important three years of my life, and I've heard third hand that they feel the same, and I believe it. They're busy people at the moment and will be for a while but I will always love them and hope to see them again. We walked over hot coals together...we just didn't do it in the same room very often.

3) That's an oddly tough question because the reason I'd wish we hadn't done it would be because it was forgettable. So I probably forgot it. I wish we had been able to do the "Shirley gives birth" episode BETTER. I think it could have been better. The director was working with half a script, we were way behind schedule, etc. I wish Pierce's pill addiction could have paid off better. I wish we could have used John Goodman to better effect. I wish Jon Oliver was in season 3. I don't know if there's an episode that I'd consider an all-out tragedy that I'd go back in time and stop from existing. You have episodes like the Mock U.N. episode, where the U.N. episode itself is kind of underwhelming and culminates in a literal fart, but it STILL has its charms because of the actors...and in that same episode, you have one of the coolest things we've ever done, which is Britta and Chang in an inside-out execution of a romantic comedy template without the romance. I don't know, man. I love my babies, I love them all, I love the chubby ones, the skinny ones, the ones that are great at math but mean to women and the ones that write beautiful sonnets but have drinking problems. I love them all.

4) My mind goes to the moment Jeff drags Pierce out of the study room in the Dungeons and Dragons episode. And Abed is standing there watching. And Jeff is absolutely livid because Fat Neil's actual LIFE is at stake, and he shouts at a man twice his age as if he's the father and Pierce is the child, which is true in that moment. "What is your PROBLEM?!" "I don't like being excluded, Jeff, do you?!" <-- Chevy's best performance in all three seasons. And the coup de grace, Jeff's incredibly simple response: "YES!" If someone had showed me that moment three years earlier and said, "you're going to make this show, you're going to write this scene," I would have been very excited and proud of myself. It felt like we had achieved something worthy of the NBC that had raised me.

5) Danny Pudi for certain. He was so different from the Abed in my head when he walked in the door, but he just leveled the room with his presence. He walked in dressed the way we ended up dressing Abed. He pulled out a tube of chapstick and applied it before every "take" of his auditions. And in the "chemistry read" with Joel McHale, when Abed introduces himself to Jeff, Danny held out his hand for shaking, but held it about six inches higher than you're "supposed to" when you offer your hand for shaking. It was so subtle and so brilliant. We all knew it was Danny's part. He walked in having decided it was his part. And there were a LOT OF GENIUSES up for that role.

6) All right, come on. I will say, in terms of wardrobe, Annie's got my number, but I'm a redhead man, and I'm with the love of my life, which means most of my fantasies involve her with other people, because I absolutely hate myself.

7) I remember reading Danny's. Shout out to Marquette!

1. He refused to do the "tag" for the Digital Estate Planning episode (the 8 bit video game episode). In the scripted tag, Abed comes to Pierce with the thumb drive he took, and says "Pierce, I've been able to adjust some of the code for your Dad's video game and I've made a version I think you might like better." He puts the thumb drive into a laptop in front of Pierce. We cut to the laptop screen, where we see Pierce's avatar on a front lawn with the giant floating head of Cornelius. Every time Pierce presses the space bar, his avatar throws a baseball to his father's head, which gives him a thousand points and a "great job, son!" Pierce presses the space bar a few times, pauses, then leans over and embraces Abed and we fade to black. When Adam Countee pitched that tag, tears instantly rolled down my cheeks, and in point of fact, my eyes are getting watery describing it to you. It was the most important part of the episode and possibly one of the most important moments of the season. I was very upset to hear that it wasn't shot because someone didn't feel like shooting it, especially since it was literally the last day of shooting, which meant we'd never be able to pick it up. I regret nothing about how upset I got. My job was to care about my show.

2. It wasn't a reflection of how we felt about Chevy, it was a reflection of how we felt Chevy would be best used. I adapted all the characters to the actors as we went on - Annie was nothing more than a Tracy Flick ripoff on paper, but by episode 6 of season one, Alison Brie and the writers had evolved the character, using Alison's flavors. I don't see Clark Griswold when I look at Chevy, and I certainly don't hear Fletch when I'm listening to someone tell me how much like Fletch they are. As I've said, I think his best performance was in the Dungeons and Dragons episode. I think what makes Pierce - and Chevy - heroic - is their unwillingness to surrender. There's a voice inside of us screaming I DON'T WANT TO DIE, I DON'T WANT TO BE IGNORED, I DON'T WANT TO FADE AWAY, IT'S NOT FAIR IT'S NOT FAIR IT'S NOT FAIR. Pierce, in his best moments, channels that voice, for the sake of all of us, so that we don't have to say these petty things. Much like Eric Cartman or Archie Bunker. It was a failed experiment that we back off of at a certain point because it felt like fans were wondering why anyone would ever hang out with such a monster.

The answer I heard from the people on set was that he didn't think it was funny. After he realized how upset I was about it, he said things in voicemails like "there was no script" (untrue) and "I have a weird relationship with the name Cornelius" (dumb, he had no dialogue in the tag). The real answer, I believe, is that he wanted to go home because he was tired. He probably didn't realize he was permanently damaging the episode by doing so because he often walked off set and then we would just pick up his shots later in the week. But this was the final shot of the season. The sets came down after he walked away. So this was the one time in three years that his personality caused unfixable damage to something I really held valuable.

I don't think anything is possible hundreds of years in the future, or I'd be better about recycling. I get what you mean, though, and I'd be honored if it went down that way, as any of us would be honored to be remembered a single day past our efforts, but it would be a bit of a sketchy honor because it's all Joseph Campbell's research (and Syd Field's). The 8 point circle is just me reducing Hero with a Thousand Faces to as simple and objectively "true" a template as possible. It was actually designed for Channel 101 directors who were letting "I'm not a writer" stand in the way of them shooting something. It was my way of saying, "look, there's such a thing as a paint by numbers story, so if storytelling isn't your passion, just get Jack up and down his beanstalk so you have something to shoot." The fact that, as one guy down there points out, Graham Linehan has gotten use from the template, is .... well, inexpressible. I don't even know how to respond to it. I have had a LOT of people tell me they've gotten use from it. A lot more than I ever thought. If that ends up being my net contribution, it's a pretty damn lucky break. I'd take it.

"Please help me make this the best show it possibly can be. Please give everything you have to it. I promise when you bleed, it will mix with my blood. I can't guarantee you'll be directly rewarded for it by the system, but I promise you it's the right thing to do. And please come to Comic Con and stand in the audience and listen to what they do when the actors come on stage. That is our God, that is the thing for which we'll be suffering." Pretty pretentious but it's an honest answer.

Sony made us. I'm not saying it was the wrong decision ultimately, but the honest answer to the question is that Pierce was literally the only role for which nobody else was considered after the actor we cast put his hat in the ring. Even McHale had to "test" against two other great guys. The short list of people I wanted to see about playing Pierce: Fred Willard, John Cleese, Patrick Stewart. That's a juicy role, man, there's a LOT of brilliant old dudes out there, but in the end, Sony felt (accurately) that Chase was a household name. And I remember Krasnoff saying to me, "listen, you make the decision on your pilot that gets you a series order. You take these things one step at a time." And there was wisdom there. Vile wisdom, but it's a vile industry. And I think the writers and Chevy ended up creating an unforgettable character.

hahaha

I don't know about "funniest character" just because that cast has ridiculous tons of dynamite. But I agree with the sentiment. I think the end result of casting Chevy was great.

1. yes

2. it symbolizes me leaving the show. I didn't know for sure I was going to but I had a feeling I might have to.

This would be a great question for the Russo Brothers, who directed the pilot and chose the blocking. There may have been very specific needs created by the pilot's story - for instance, Pierce is hitting on Shirley, seems he needed to be next to her, and Annie and Shirley have major tension that probably dictated they be adjacent. The neat thing is how Troy and Abed ended up sitting next to each other even though we had absolutely no idea Troy and Abed would become BFFs - which you can see from watching the first five or six episodes.

what he said!

I don't know if I would have ever spent much more energy on the idea of Pierce chasing Shirley's skirt. One of the first things Chevy insisted upon was that his character be a lady's man, which made the writers think it would be hilarious for his character to insist he was a lady's man. In the beginning, the thing I knew for sure about Pierce was that he'd be a sometime jealous rival of Winger's and an oft-time "hapless Obi Wan," to quote an insight from Joe Russo.

no

I feel great about the support, from a selfish perspective. I feel bad about it from the fan's perspective because it tears everything we all love to pieces. All of the conflict between writers, networks and studios stems from one simple thing: We all want the audience to keep watching and we all disagree about how to make it happen. So the idea of me getting fired and everyone saying "this is bullshit!" is a double edged sword. It strokes my ego but, contrary to what my detractors might have you believe, it's not my ego that's at stake. I have self-esteem falling out of my butt. What's at stake is the AUDIENCE'S PLEASURE. Now they're displeasured because I'm gone. It's a sandpaper handjob. Coined it.

EDITED because I forgot to answer your other question:

I think the reason for the support is the same reason I got fired. I had my fat, greasy fingerprints and big, fat face all over that show. I was the Colonel Sanders. They wouldn't have minded it if the chicken had sold better.

boring answer, but you said it. The beetlejuice thing was the height of ridiculous insideness. Props to Megan Ganz, her idea. The runner-up would be Abed delivering the baby in the background. Good job, Hilary Winston!

Thank you. Second time I've cried in one AMA. I hope you understand that this is the reason I do what I do - I am, to quote Yvette Nicole Brown, a "broken" person, and to quote Hilary Winston in her first interview to work on season 1, this is a show about broken people. All of them are quite alone, some involuntarily, some by their own hand, some without realizing it, but none of them come to the study room table with the emotional advantages held by that mythical creature known as "a normal person." There are no normal people, there are just different kinds of weird, all of it is human and all humanity is better than everything inhuman. So I urge you to keep expressing yourself as honestly as you can, and know that the backpedals and second-guesses really aren't necessary - they don't hurt but they're wasting your time - because when you are truly human, as we all are, and when that is your honest message to anyone, you are beyond reproach, there is no way to screw it up. I love Abed very much, too, for the obvious reason that he's a character able to connect with others through comparatively limited channels. I had a TV show, he has ...other people's TV shows. You have a reddit account. And maybe a bunch of other ways. And when you tell me that our show was somehow helpful to you, that it somehow inspired you to use whatever channels you have to connect yourself to others, well, water squirts out of my eyes, because there's no higher goal a writer (or carpenter or zookeeper or bank robber) can have. So thank you. As for the idea of me never seeing what you have to say: it may often be true, but I think what the internet, which is increasingly becoming the real world, needs most, is a big fat dose of everybody assuming that EVERYBODY CAN SEE THEM. I think we have to stop using this place as a toilet or an Eyes-Wide-Shut orgy and start using it to be who we really are because I don't see a lot of roller rinks being built and we're running out of mountains to climb, so, better or worse, this is it, we are all entering Abed's box now. God speed to you and follow your bliss!

I HATE THEM APPLES

Sure. But Breaking Bad (and Game of Thrones) have had their day in the sun so let me take this opportunity to urge people to watch HBO's Girls. None of us like being told that young people coming out of nowhere are super important, we have a healthy tendency to be skeptical of it, but don't cheat yourself. After two episodes of Girls, you'll realize that Lena Dunham is too talented and too honest to abuse any validation you give her. She's just good; that show is noteworthy, I can't wait to see more of it and I'm really glad MY GIRLFRIEND FORCED ME TO WATCH IT WHILE I HAD FOOD POISONING.

those guys have their own mythology, I was the last person that would ever be privvy. I still wonder why Gillian's nickname among the actors was "stink."

No juicy answers for this. I had "a handsome version of me" in mind for Winger and we found him in Joel McHale, plus a lot more. I had my friend from Channel 101, Abed Gheith, in mind for Abed, but then Pudi walked in having cast himself in the part, as I describe in another answer. I had a teenage Woody Harrelson in mind for Troy, which was totally subverted by the fact that Donald Glover is just a star. I had Mary Steenburgen in my head when writing for Shirley, but Yvette's versatility was more valuable to me. As I've often said, Annie was a blatant ripoff of Tracy Flick from Election, so I naturally just pictured Tracy Flick, but it's not like I wanted Rheese Witherspoon to play the role, and after a planetwide scouring, we saw Alison and it clicked. Gillian might have been the oddest departure in terms of what I pictured...there was a mile-long line of girls that looked like Jo from Facts of Life in the hallway, but then this tiny blonde with the flu strolled in and was such an obvious natural dramatic talent that I immediately felt like "this is Britta."

I'm going to do you a huge favor and tell you she smells like farts. It's not true, but it will help you get through your day. If you find out she smells like a botanical garden, it's harder to live without her, right?

not really. Glendale was a good school with passionate faculty and a very clean lawn. The most important thing that happened to me there was that two guys in my biology class "made" me study with them in the library after class one night, and I went into this little study room with a bad attitude about having to do it, and I left feeling part of the brotherhood of man. It was an emotional experience that I knew would make for good solid TV.

Camping!

That's awesome. It feels dumb to say this because it's so obvious, but good editors are fundamental to a show's success. They have to be part engineer, part artist. They have to balance having creative opinions with fulfilling the "vision" of the asshole over their shoulder. A bad script and a bad performance can be spun into gold in the edit bay, whereas bad editing cannot be reversed, it is the final and most important place, it's the sphincter through which our babies' heads pass into the hands of the waiting audience, so the idea that Community inspires more people to take up editing is of huge satisfaction to guys like myself and Chris McKenna, who took the post production of his episodes very seriously. Shout outs to Peter Ellis, Ruthie Aslan, Jeff Hall, Christian Kinnard and all the editors that came and went for all three seasons. I miss you guys sorely. You did God's work in those bays.

Work on Anomalisa can't really start until we see what kind of real money we're looking at. The first decisions about making stop motion are the most financially dependent - what kind of dolls are we going to design, are they going to have fancy ball-and-socket armatures like the Community Christmas dolls, or faster, cheaper wireframe armatures like the Frankenhole dolls, etc. Eyes, lips, hair, set design, storyboards, everything is affected on a fundamental level by whether we have 300K or 350K at the outset of pre-production. Also, until we get started with that stuff, Charlie's not weighing in on how he WANTS it done, and however Charlie wants it done is how it's going to get done...so, while all of that should amount to a great piece of stop motion storytelling, it doesn't amount to me being able to say much right now, other than: KEEP PLEDGING TO ANOMALISA, there's a MILLION DOLLAR VERSION OF IT, pledge pledge pledge and every penny will end up on screen.

I asked him if I could tweet the pic and he said yes but I won't say anything else, other than: I was on the set of Arrested and I met Mitch Hurwitz, who hugged me and acted like it was cool for HIM that I was there, and we talked smack about network politics and it was a dream come true. He is as cool and smart as you'd imagine him to be. The thing that took me by surprise is that he's not a 500 pound, pock-marked bald guy with squirrels in his beard, because I would imagine that his level of talent would involve that kind of body. But wouldn't you know, he's not only a genius, he's also spry and adorable. The more I think about it, the more I realize it made me feel like shit to meet him. Just kidding. It was awesome.

I think I got the most visceral experience from watching The Wire. But that's old news, right? As Game of Thrones' recent season was winding up, I was pumping my fists. I look forward to more GIRLS, I love Archer, and I have become unexpectedly addicted to THE L.A. COMPLEX. That's my girlfriend's fault again.

from the context you're describing, sounds like there's a good chance I started talking about how much of my own money I put into season 2 of Community. I'd estimate I put about $300K of my own cash into season 2, but I don't know the final tally because all I cared about was making the show good. The irony, or rather the complete lack of irony, is that the people that did care about that money are the same people that edited out me talking about it. To paraphrase Noam Chomsky, shame begets fraud and fraud begets force and force begets shame and fraud.

oh and I think I also implied that the Russo brothers were embezzling from the budget, which, while clearly a joke, might have been considered libelous by Sony's legal dept. and edited out. But if there's 20 seconds of silence, my first guess is more likely

they all have different senses of humor. I would never answer a question like this while I was over there but now that I'm gone I can probably just say DONALD WAS MY FAVORITE! DONALD WAS MY FAVORITE!!!

Charlie has been friends with my partner at Starburns Industries, Dino Stamatopolous, for years. TRIVIA: they were on the writing staff for the Dana Carvey Show together. Through Dino's friendship with Charlie, I got an opportunity to meet Charlie, one of my absolute top heroes - beyond hero, he's one of my gods - and it was at a live performance of a radio play he wrote called Anomalisa, this tragic, ingenious expression of our craving for abnormality (I hope Charlie doesn't read me describing his work, it'll be wrong). Ever since we started our own studio, Dino's been on Charlie to sign the rights to Anomalisa over so we could try to do something with it. Charlie has finally done us the favor and so, there ya go.

I think that was Chris McKenna. He'd be better able to shed light on that process from start to finish. It had to do with the need for multiple timelines to be as "different" as possible without leaving the same room; best way to do that is to have a kind of "schroedinger's cat," a thing in a box that is either opened or not open, with very different results...leading to the decision to have Pierce give Troy a housewarming gift, and wanting that gift to be an expression of Pierce's underlying jealousy and loneliness.

Not for me. Turns out that for all their fretting and bitching, Sony is selling Community in syndication at a plenty high price. That means everyone involved - good guys and bad guys - are going to make money. It also means that "low ratings" are going to mean less tomorrow than they did yesterday, and even less the day after that, because all the bad guys care about is money, and to a certain degree, they now have to associate "critical darling" and "vocal fans" with that precious MONEY, whereas before they used to privately associate it with impending liability. The only potential losers are the fans, but this timeline has yet to play out for them. As I've said, don't underestimate the power of those actors playing those characters, and as I've said, we've got a lot of great writers over there. I think they were incredibly stupid to let me go but that's not the same as saying the show can't be good without me. Fingers crossed, goatees in the drawer, gun barrels out of mouths. Maybe it's the timeline where everybody wins. Regardless, don't weep for me. All that money they're going to make...a big pile of it is mine. I washed dishes in a rehab center for three years and I didn't walk away from that story with jack shit. Except maybe an idea for a FOX pilot.

is there such a thing as a network with a heart of gold that only treats creatives with respect? You have to go down to basic cable to find that, and basic cable will keep. Not to be presumptuous, but, a year from now, I can still talk to a basic cable network about doing my "breaking bad." A year from now, nobody in network TV is going to be interested in working with me. And my goal has always been and always will be to make the most people happy that I can. So I want to try network, one more time (two more times simultaneously). I want to see if it's possible to make something Good AND Successful. There's a lot of people out there worshipping at the altar of "those are mutually exclusive." I don't want to live in that world until it's finally beaten me to a pulp and forced that truth on me. I want to be the guy that proves that religion untrue. I have to try. My heroes are the ones that try to disprove that religion.

because network TV doesn't know the internet exists yet.

My suggestion for young writers: find your voice and shout it. Know who you are, know what you love, know what you hate and why. Take a piece of paper and press it to the top of your brain and share that map of your universe with anyone who will bother to look at it. If that doesn't appeal to you, the problem solves itself, because there are those among us who are compelled to do it, and they are the ones that should be doing it. Hollywood was a different place when I moved here - one notable difference being that I had to move here, because Hollywood was a geographic location, whereas it is increasingly becoming simply an industry spread around the world. Rob Schrab and I wrote a spec script and we wrote our phone number on the cover sheet and we kept ten copies of it in the back seat of each of our cars. And we annoyed the hell out of anyone we met that we thought might possibly read it. And we got lucky. Nowadays, you probably don't need the backseat of the car, you can bug people and say, "can I please email you my script, and if you have a chance, could you read it?" Many will say no, some will say yes, most of them won't read it anyway. But it's really all you can do on your end. You can just write and try to get people to read it and hope that somehow, one of them knows an agent.

Yes, I believe in my heart of hearts that, to quote Stuart Cornfeld, a producer working for Ben Stiller's Red Hour, "talent will out." Talent will out. If you should be doing what you are doing, either by grace of God or the industry's greed, you are going to be discovered. The difficulty is that you can't control when (That, by the way, is the unfair syndrome that results in, for instance, there not being enough black voices in television. Disenfranchised demographics statistically don't have the outside support system to pursue a career as frivolous and unpredictable as writing so you have Harvard graduates giving jobs to Harvard graduates in precisely the vocations that require their sheltered point of view the least, which leads to bad TV which leads to disenfranchisement of unsheltered demographics but that's an answer to a different question and now the Ketel One is doing the talking). But yes, short or tall, black or white, male or female, weird or handsome, if you are talented, your talent will out. It will rise to the top. And one of the least likable aspects of my personality, by all reports, is that I associate talent with "goodness." So by my perverse definitions, yes, good writing and good people rise to the top and get to make a difference. It's just very important that MORE OF US TRY. I'm looking at you, sixth grade black girl in a public school that likes to write but isn't being told writing is an option by anyone. Maybe it's not an option but if it's your COMPULSION, I believe you owe it to your God, your government and yourself to indulge it come hell or high water.

The wheels of animation turn slowly, especially at the beginning. We're still waiting to get an official nod from Adult Swim but it's looking good. I can't express adequately how excited I am about "Rick and Morty." It's not going to be a substitute for "Community" for 100 percent of Community fans, some will love it but some people that hated Community will love Rick and Morty and some people that love Community will hate Rick and Morty, but the bottom line is, it's a really, REALLY exciting pilot and the series has a unique potential to go just about anywhere. I want to get started on it really bad.

Oops, while I was answering part of this question, the question got "deleted" because it had a joke question tacked onto with the F word in it, but I spent a couple minutes answering the first part so here it is without the question's F word:

[–]MrBingles 11 points 3 hours ago What was your guiding philosophy when you developed the idea behind Community? What were you aiming to create, and did the end result meet your expectations?

I'm not sure if this is the precise question you're asking, but the religion of Community is that People are Good and Systems are Bad. To elaborate, that Even Bad People Can be turned Good by People Whereas Nobody's Ever Been Turned Anything but Bad by a System. If there's an episode of Community that doesn't hammer that home, it's an accident, because it's my only soapboxy hangup that I think is worthy of dragging onto TV...I guess because TV, as a medium, works pretty hard day and night to dehumanize and separate us, so the message that "your neighbor ain't so bad" is like a drop of chlorine in a septic tank. It might not help but it ain't gonna hurt. I live as a person fundamentally separated from people. It's hard to talk to them, it's hard to be part of their lives. I wanted to tell the story of a guy like that who stops being like that, who becomes part of Something Bigger Than Him. And yeah, it worked pretty well. A little too well, n'est ce pas?

in spite of all its current pop culture references, yes. I don't understand half of what British TV references and it's always fine. The references in Community aren't what's for sale, they're simply an aspect of making characters feel real in spite of an unreal medium. Ultimately, the stories and characters in Community are timeless. At least timeless enough.

It's very difficult for me to look Charlie in the eye and when I'm in a conversation with him, it's 70 percent obscured by the throbbing hum of my ID saying "HOLY SHIT YOU'RE TALKING TO CHARLIE KAUFMAN" so I won't have a solid answer to that question for a while. I will tell you why I feel this way in a very narcissistic story. Years ago, I was attempting to adapt a short story by George Saunders called Civilwarland in Bad Decline for Ben Stiller's company. It's a very nuanced, stylized, psychological, dark, personal and absurd short story and I desperately wanted to be the one to successfully adapt it but was desperately failing to do so on paper and it was haunting me day and night and ruining my life, to the point where, at one point, I thought, "what I ought to do is just call the script 'Adaptation' and write the story of me trying to adapt it, because it's the only story I can actually understand at this point, etc.," and a day later, there was a billboard for a movie called "Adaptation" on Sunset boulevard and it turned out it was written by the Being John Malkovich guy, so I went to see it, and I walked out of that theatre feeling simultaneously demoralized and enthralled on a level theretofore unexperienced. I felt what it must be like for the schizophrenic guy that thought Monster House was sending him hidden messages about his dead daughter. Kaufman's writing made me feel insane and beaten and turned inside out. Even if I would ever be capable of doing what he does, he is always a full decade ahead of me doing it. He mocks me with lack of effort. So I am the Salieri to his Mozart, and I have the choice between being Bad Salieri, and trying to figure out how to beat him, or I can be Good Salieri and just figure out whatever I can do to help. It is for that reason that we are doing Anomalisa and it is for that reason that I can't answer your question because my brain becomes a balloon animal when I enter the same room as him.

nice call. Love that brick joke

At the end of the third season's clip show episode, Chang paraphrases something I would sometimes say in the writer's room: "come on, guys, I'm making up the same show you are, pitches, pitches, pitches!" I think one of the writers wrote that line into the script to make fun of me, and then I think I added that a little girl hands him a drink to which he replies, "ah, thank you Megan," obviously (to fans) a reference to Megan Ganz, who used to bring me glasses of Ketel One when I sat at the keyboard in the writer's room (it wasn't brown nosing, she was just speeding my demise so she could take over). That's as self-indulgently inside as I can remember us getting - because usually if we did an inside joke, we made sure it also functioned as an "outside" one.

Jesus, almost every episode. Most notably the Dinner with Andre one. I had a near nervous breakdown during that one because I was certain I had destroyed my own show.

none, really. I'd like to make a clean break of things until it's all over. I saw Adam Countee at Sarah Silverman's party a few days ago and almost cried. I saw Yvette and Gillian at the SixSeasonsAndAMovie art show and Gillian made me cry saying goodbye. I'm going to go to Chicago with Chris McKenna to the Hugo awards ceremony, because we're comedy writers but sci fi fans and it's the only chance we'll ever get to lose something to Doctor Who instead of Chuck Lorre. I have a pretty isolated social life, I'm bad at keeping in touch with people and I'm not able to maintain a huge pile of friends at the same time. My show was my way of being their friend, now that I'm not doing it, maybe I'll have dinner with Joel McHale when he's available, and I'll invite them to any big parties I throw, but other than that, it's me, my girlfriend, my cat, Jeff Davis, Dino, a bunch of Mexican guys remodeling my home and Rob Schrab in that order.

Rob Schrab's idea. I even tried to tell him it wasn't worth pitching. Then it was the only idea we sold in our first pitch meeting. The pitch was literally, and I'm not kidding: "Monster House....the house....is a monster." And when Rob pitched it, he held his hands up one at a time, like Ed Wood pitching "Doctor Acula." And the head of Imagemovers stared at him, blinked, and said, "I get it. I like it." And bought it in the room. That was pretty much the beginning of our career. And a very important learning experience for me. Not the mention the fact that it was Monster House that drove me insane and running into the arms of Joseph Campbell, which changed everything for me. But, I don't know, ask Schrab....I know we wanted to make a good scary movie for kids, one that respected kids on the level of The Goonies...but why a house? Because Rob is nuts, that's why. Because the inside of his brain looks like the outside of a 70s lunchbox.

it's pretty easy for that not to be my problem because the same people that bust my ass about budgets and stuff will always be the ones attempting to police that stuff. So I have the luxury of not caring. I just want people to consume my stuff and say good job, I don't need a dollar from it to know I'm a good person but I do need a dollar to pay my rent so I can keep doing it. I owe a very luxurious life to the fact that a lot of greedy people do a lot of dirty work I don't have to care about. In general, though, I do think it's pretty dumb to try to put a cork in technology. When people figure out a way to steal your stuff that's easier than buying it, it means you have to make it easier for them to buy it, you can't make it impossible for them to steal, it's wasted energy in my opinion but I'm not a CEO or a union leader or a politician, I'm just a fat guy that likes making stuff.

I'm very proud of Mister Sprinkles. I sometimes wonder if people can understand what an achievement that was, because we committed to the concept of Acceptable, and we never made a frame of that animation until the audience gave us the go-ahead, we never planned ahead, but we ended up assembling a crazy, beautiful story on the fly. I haven't seen it for a while but I remember being very, very proud of it, and of Justin Roiland and his animation crew especially. Heroes all. Sprinkles Forever.

what he said

If I was going to defend it, my defense might be half a dozen sitcoms on which I grew up, or the fact that live theatre predates single camera sitcoms by anywhere from six thousand to six hundred thousand years depending on your definition. Or I could let multi camera defend itself with its own vitality. I could say: I think the problem with current multi camera shows isn't the fact that you can hear people laughing, it's the fact that they're so often laughing at things that aren't funny. I could say it's dishonesty, greed and laziness that make a sitcom bad, not the format and certainly not the format on which television was built.

But those wouldn't be adequate defenses in the face of the inarguable fact that most multi cam TV is joyless crap. More importantly, I wouldn't take healthy skepticism and mistrust of TV away from any viewer. It's not my job in TV to shove things down the audience's throat and call them stupid for not liking it. It's my job to make something good enough to watch, and if you don't watch it, I'm doing it wrong.

This idea that good things are unpopular and popular things suck is a very understandable and well-supported idea, but I also think it's a correlation as opposed to a cause-effect relationship. I don't think there's anything about the multi camera format inherently that necessitates anything you don't like about it, but I respect the audience for assuming multi-camera means stupid. I expect the audience to assume TV IS STUPID. I accept that it's my job to overcome it. And I don't much care if I fall on my face trying. It's worth trying. Especially when so many people assume it can't work.

In sum: no defense. I get it, multi cam is dumb. I agree. I want to try to subvert that assumption while I have a chance. Might fail. Just want to try. As I've said, basic cable is the future, basic cable will keep. I've got one more time at bat in the bigs and I want to swing for the bleachers.

It took me six hours to write that rap.

I don't think he's "gay." I think that might have been Rash's ring and we nixed it after the pilot? Don't know. Sorry I don't know. I never would have assumed that character was married if someone had asked. Not because I thought he was gay but because I like lonely characters.

Yes.

I don't perceive the character as being dumbed down, I think we evolved her into one of the most sophisticated characters in TV comedy. Britta's pop cultural ignorance ("rowboat cop") and the fact that she dropped out of high school and ain't so well-read are human qualities to which I found a lot of women relating and/or joyfully not relating, but in any case BELIEVING. I always felt that the triumph of Britta as a character was that she was the only "real" person, stuck on Gilligan's island, and ironically being punished for it. Sometimes we would cross the line. I did find myself telling the writer's room here and there, "let's not make her a dumb blonde, she's a high school dropout and she's computer illiterate and she's a late bloomer because she's lived a fuller life, but there's a difference between that and an airhead." If we made her an airhead, it was an accident, or an isolated instance of us being too tempted by a funny joke. Troy was an airhead. Britta was a work of art. She was a post post feminist masterpiece and a televised work of art. If I do say so myself.

bigger fish, brah!

No. I don't think I've ever done that - for very long before revealing it was me. But definitely not for years. I hit a saturation point a year ago with "public attention" that has left me satiated or disillusioned, depending on how you look at it, and in any case, no longer interested in googling myself and defending myself. I will confess that I regularly check the handful of Tumblr blogs that "celebrate" me as a human being, I love them, it's no-risk-high-yield for my ego.

I feel like NBC is in a state of chaos that may or may not be ended by this latest regime, but in any case, at the moment of my firing, lacked the concern, coordination, foresight and muscle to make Sony understand what a needlessly risky move they were making.

I think Sony took the risk because they didn't see it as a risk. What's at risk when your show's been moved to purgatory, etc. I feel like taking me off Community was as obviously foolish as you see most people saying.

I think the rumors you hear about me being bad at my job, especially the empty, overblown stuff about Chevy, are the best possible attempt anyone can make at making a very confusing, very dumb thing seem less confusing and less dumb.

I also feel relieved and excited and proud and smug. I feel like I win and they lose. My writers and I bled for that show and we would have kept doing it, in spite of Sony's attitude, for one reason: the fans. If it weren't for the fans, we all would have quit after season two. That show stopped being about our fulfillment the day Sony told us the Dungeons and Dragons episode was their least favorite. It stopped being about the writers' fulfillment the day Greenblatt told me he had seen "about half" the episodes but wanted to know how we could stop making it "too weird to follow The Office." There was a point where the only thing getting the writers out of bed was the joy of the viewer, which was plenty, even though Sony was doing everything in their power to make us miserable. So you can see how a company taking it upon themselves to martyr me the way they did was a pretty clean way out of a pretty tough spot for me. At the end of this thing, I'm rich, people want to work with me, audiences respect me, I don't have to work for Sony anymore and I can even feel sorry for myself if I feel like it. It's a pretty sweet ending to a crazy story.

That's how I honestly feel. Answering honestly does me no favors, but I want to take the "anything" part of "ask me anything" seriously, because Reddit made Community. And that's the part of this whole thing that bums me out, is that the only people that stand to suffer are the only people that never made a dime. The people that put free labor into Community. The people that got tattoos of it, the people that made halloween costumes and birthday cakes and tee shirts and music videos about it. They're the only people not walking away with millions of dollars and they're the only people that EVER MATTERED and ever understood the show.

So I feel good bad. I feel terrible awesome. I feel proud ashamed. I feel engorged on my own starvation, I feel like the biggest con artist and sucker in the history of monsters and heroes.

this is an ongoing debate in the writer world: spec or original. The dissatisfying answer is "both," because nothing impresses me faster when I'm looking for a new writer than an original pilot rubber banded to a good, solid Modern Family or Parks and Rec spec.

THAT SAID, the more satisfying answer is EITHER. Because there are a lot of different kinds of writers in a writer's room. I hope writers will forgive the analogy because I'm one of them, but: there are writers that fetch, there are writers that shake hands, there are writers that hunt ducks. You are good at something - might be dialogue, might be jokes, might be darkness, might be joy, might be invention of concepts and it might be good old, plain and simple FAITHFUL EXECUTION OF SOMEONE ELSE'S CHARACTERS. People are looking for any or all of it all of the time and you can't control what they're looking for so control what you can: write to your strength. Follow your bliss. When you get "caught" doing something, get caught doing what you love and what you're good at doing. So, ball's in your court there I'm afraid.

that's a good question but I think I'd give it to someone more deserving and needy, because I'm not sure how much I like to know about the shows I love and the people behind them. I never watch those "Breaking Bad Behind the Scenes" things, I don't want the magic destroyed. So I guess maybe if "giving it away to the best Community fan I could find" isn't an acceptable answer I would say "whatever the biggest comic book movie coming out that year is," because, you know, who gives a crap if that sucks or rules, might as well go where the heat is and be part of an event if you don't have to stand in line.

keep writing, keep making people read what you write, I'm sorry that's it. Stuff like Channel 101 might help you get some connections and hands-on experience with other people in your shoes...

a dolphin because I assume they live longer and they have brains and babies and stuff.

I wouldn't have thought it would be appreciated in the UK, partly because it's so saturated with pop cultural stuff but mostly because I picture all British people as wearing caps and gowns and glasses and being way smarter than me about everything (that's why all the bad guys in Star Wars are British, it's a colonial gene pool thing). I am pleasantly surprised to hear from folks in the UK enjoying Community and really flattered and grateful when they drop a line. Thanks for asking!

there was certainly no resistance to the idea of him being Palestinian. The odd thing is how accepting we were of half-Polish, half-indian Danny Pudi taking the part without us "rewriting" his biography, which seems to offend more people than not. It's a really weird issue on which I can see both sides...are we saying "all brown people are the same" or are we saying "acting is acting and character is what's important..." if we HAD changed Abed to an ethnic background "matching" his actor, you wouldn't be writing this post, which I think is noteworthy, but as I say, I see both sides of this very complicated issue in casting.

I'm afraid that question is out of my hands now!!!

I give it a 50/50 chance!

I'm going to go with Joel McHale. I've written the most for him and he has endured the most at my hands and he has been the most professional, dedicated, loyal, passionate actor in spite of having the right and the clout to be less than so. He is a good man, a good husband, a good father, a good actor, a good comic, a good friend, a leader to the rest of the cast and he has a penis the exact size and shape of a crowbar.

he would have been a guy too perfect to be normal and therefore very lonely; someone that couldn't understand what it takes to be accepted after working so hard to be perfect. Good question. I would love to write for that guy. Schrab and I always said that was the biggest missed opportunity in Superman casting. Tom Cruise and Tom Cruise alone could have made a man from Krypton strangely relatable, since nobody knows what it's like to be Superman but EVERYBODY knows what it's like to be unaccepted...

addendum: just realized Cruise would have been perfect as SUBWAY

Timebelt, Classroom and "Oh, Shit!"

I have horrible taste in music but I love writing songs...I tend to write pretty hacky melodies, usually ripoff melodies, and then get a real musician, like Ludwig, to make them not-ripoffs. But I love writing words as songs. I didn't really have a musical upbringing...we had a piano and my mom encouraged me to play it and I did love it but I never had the discipline or split-brain accumen to take it further than toying around, I was much more fascinated by mom's typewriter in the end. I always regret not taking up an instrument at some point, because at 39, it wouldn't be easy....

something like that.

Cheers had the most influence on me as a kid, I think.

seven.

1. yes

2. Community was a creature of development from the get-go, not a thing I took into a studio seeking financing to make, but a thing I used their help in assembling, so it doesn't really apply. I'm very pleased with the Anomalisa experiment so far and I do have another project I'm very interested in "kickstarting" but I want Anomalisa to play out first, I don't want to give people KickFatigue.

No.

A lot of them are amalgams. I've often referred to Annie as a "Tracy Flick ripoff" but she's also partly inspired by one of my high school crushes. Pierce was based loosely on the father of an ex girlfriend, Abed was based on my friend Abed, Britta started as generic "hot eclectic girl" but the evolved version of her became based somewhat on a different ex of mine...

I met some of the new young writers at the six seasons and a movie art show. They told me the guys that replaced me are "nice." I said "well, they'd have to be, wouldn't they." I was trying to be funny, but I'm sure those guys didn't walk away from the encounter thinking I was awesome.

there is a thing I would like to try if Anomalisa works out. It's a feature script I've been on-and-off attacking for over a decade and I think stop motion might be the one perfect medium for it.

I would think it was a bummer.

I think maybe she's kind of like you?

it may be something on your end...

there's a possibility that we're going to try it as an animated series, baby.

thank you so much, that means a lot to me.

I think that until there's a story in which Abed gets diagnosed by a qualified professional, his "condition" is schroedinger's cat, could be anything. I have the feeling that if Abed has Asperger's, it's certainly not the explanation for all of him. He exhibits elements of mild schizophrenia and even major psychosis sometimes...or does he just suffer the dubious honor of being outside the diorama...

Walking Dead

it got pretty distorted by scheduling problems. It's a dangerous game to cast busy actors in multiple episode "arcs." You're laying down non-random plans in a random vortex.

I would often go there while writing Community to check to see if an idea we had had been done before and how it had been done. It's a brilliant tool.

the question is the punchline. It's your question to cherish!

Depends on a lot of variables. Justin Lin would have to direct and whenever they came to the set, everyone from Sony would have to wear special hats shaped like dicks.

it was every wednesday for a while before we realized that's his golf day.

Dino found playing Starburns to be a bit of a drag. He never complained or anything, but being on set as an actor, even in a small role, can be long hours for low pay under hot lights and it takes a special kind of talent to consider it worthwhile. Dino's got talents that pay off more quickly in other venues, for instance, he's an excellent drinker and it always makes him very happy very quickly. He had expressed the desire to become dead at a certain point and then came an opportunity to grant his wish in the form of the Law and Order ending.

I'm the only Joss Whedon. Have you ever seen us in the same room?

Four Hour Body

Beautiful, soft, untamed, squeaky, prehensile, probably an insectivore

I don't think any romantic pairings between the study group members would pan out in a permanent way, but I know for certain they will never stop hanging out together. They are a family.

I spent my adult Milwaukee years in Riverwest, my favorite bar was the Uptowner but I also hung out at Libby's on Brady Street and my friends would sometimes go to North ave., back then it was Vitucci's, Landmark and occasionally Von Triers. I took my first dates to Pizza Man, I ate a lot of gyros, I slept on a bare mattress in my friend's attic, wore a winter coat to bed and I stared at a palm tree-shaped water stain on the plywood ceiling, fantasizing that one day it would be a real one. Now I have like five!

yes, don't watch.

I got a hell of a lot more than I wanted out of it.

Joe Russo suggested him first, they shared a manager. He showed me some Derrick stuff online and we were having trouble finding a Troy, and I saw Donald performing, and I thought, "to hell with finding Troy, you found this guy, put this guy on your show."

Lucky

thank you!

well, if someone wants to spend that time pitching us stuff, it's up to them, it's pretty easy to listen to a pitch...and I don't mind talking about whether an idea has legs, especially with someone funding a movie I'm making. Whatever they want to do or talk about over drinks is fine with us, I think Dino and I are equally excited about the idea, I don't think it'll be too awkward. the whole point of drinking with people is it makes the awkward go away!

you give me the easy out at the end there, it just depends on the story you're telling...but I think if there's a "perfect" story shape, it's truly circular and therefore the model would function like a stopwatch and each step would take an equal amount of time. But that's all theoretical mish mosh. Some people are creatively activated by taking a mathematical or geometric approach to their work, some people are turned off by that, I would say, hey, make sure your character goes down and comes back up again, give it some curvature, follow your bliss, but when you're STUCK, take a look at that model and maybe it can get you unstuck. Other than that, the story's already inside you. The thing that makes it great is part of who you are, it's your voice, your style.

it started as Jeff and became Abed toward the end of season 1, and no you can't have my address!

'fraid not.

I see them merging with the existing system, blowing open a lot of locks in the canal, evening some water levels. Part of that will feel like a flood, a revolution, but in the end, rich assholes figure out how to screw over good poor people, that's capitalism, so either capitalism itself is going to collapse (unlikely) or crowd-funding will merge with the studio system, much like internet is merging with TV....who's to say which is swallowing which, it becomes a semantic distinction, the empirically observable truth is that the two are merging.

yes, I had severe worries. He's never worked with anyone twice. I thought it was dangerously cocky of us to think that our show was going to be the only trailer in the trailer park to be exempt from a historically documented tornado, and I figured the punishment for our hubris would be annihilation. I was happily somewhat wrong - he didn't make making the show very easy but he didn't ruin it and I thought his character was a big part of why the show was good.

the cast was assembled based on the perceived need for chemistry...we didn't do "chemistry reads" with all combinations but what we did do was cast people based on versatility and positive attitude. So it wasn't a surprise that they all got along and worked so well together...I mean, that was the intention...I guess it was a pleasant surprise that we NAILED IT!

a writer

wow, thank you so much. I was especially proud of that little runner, precisely because it ended on that note, proving that it's possible to be funny and even to laugh at "weird" people without the punchline or moral being that they're SUPPOSED TO BE "NORMAL." Dean Pelton goes through something we've all gone through - the sudden, panicked, defeated realization that we're a joke, that all our life is spent in futility, that we're wrong about everything, that we're alone and nobody cares. And I find it noteworthy that it really registers as "ironic television" to have him bound in at the end with a big smile on his face having discovered that life isn't so bad and that his weirdness was a gift to other people. It's evidence of how messed up we've become as a society, the fact that in this day and age, the "unexpected joke" can be happiness. The good news is, being messed up doesn't mean the story's over. It means the story's just starting, and in the end, we all find out we're NOT ALONE, or maybe that we're ALL ALONE and therefore united in our loneliness. I really appreciate you posting this, as you can imagine, Dean Pelton is understandably perceived by some to be a queer stereotype, like, ha ha, laugh at the gay guy, and I'm always finding myself clarifying, he's not gay, he's not straight, he's an ocean-deep, planetwide labyrinth of kinks and turns. He represents the part of all of us that doesn't get turned on by Budweiser ads, and sometimes feels a little lost because of it, but that heroically, CHARGES ON in the discovery of himself. THANK YOU!