Comedian/podcast host/angry guy Marc Maron is guest hosting G4′s Attack of the Show this week, and last night he scored a major coup: the first post-being-fired-from-Community interview with Dan Harmon, whose name will forever be associated with the sentence “he didn’t know how to play the game,” non-Omar division.
The choice block quotes include, via Pop Culture Brain:
“If 20 people call you a horse’s ass, you buy a saddle. I feel like I’m a good person and a professional, a very able leader of men. I also feel like I’m 25…Maybe I am just a jerk. To people who work above me I am a liability that isn’t worth the benefit. It’s a low-rated show that’s not generating much revenue.”
At least he’s honest with himself?
“My [next] idea is to have less ideas, because I want to be successful in television. I turned off 90 percent of my brain … for the first season of Community.” That next show, Harmon says, could be a multi-camera comedy — like The Big Bang Theory — “just to prove that it’s not cancer, it doesn’t have to be. TV in all of its ugliness can be a beautiful thing.”
I found the outpouring of grief that Harmon received after being booted from Community very uncalled for — yes, it sucked that it had to come to that, but again, he didn’t know how to play the game. To us, he’s a brilliant creator of a brilliant show, but from NBC’s perspective, he’s someone who constantly went overbudget and took his grievances (mostly with Chevy Chase) public on a series that brings in little revenue and even less of a Nielsen audience. I get their line of reasoning for what they did. But goddamn do I love that final quote. If Harmon can create a commercially and critically successful multi-camera sitcom, that would be even more impressive than airing an entire episode that parodies My Dinner with Andre…in 2011…in Friends‘ former timeslot.
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To be clear: You just said that television’s only responsibility is to make a profit and we should be ok with that.
You’ve misread. Television, and in particular network television, is a business; businesses can have imperatives besides profit (witness the increasing popularity of concepts like the 3P Business – Profit, People, and Planet – and new corporate structures like the B-corp specifically designed to accommodate missions beyond profit), but if your business doesn’t make more than it spends, you’re out of business and all your good intentions come to nought. The more money your business makes, the more license you have to shape it according to your own notions.
In the instant case, if Harmon’s show had been more profitable, he could have been as interpersonally difficult and unprofessional (as well as creative) as he wanted; the same is true if he’d made his show on a cable channel, where the profit imperative is somewhat reduced. Neither is true, and yet he still behaved like someone whose show was making money like American Idol. Profit isn’t the only responsibility of a show or a business, but it’s the first bar you have to clear, and without it, you’re living on borrowed time. If you don’t understand that as a showrunner and comport yourself accordingly, you end up like Harmon.
To sum up Josh’s point, then: it’s all in the game, yo.
Yeah, Picketts, but as fans of something that was original and intelligent, we’re upset by this. I don’t care about the business. I don’t care about Harmon’s attitude. I just care that something I love has changed.
Taco,
Yeah, it sucks, and I get that. But at a certain point, you have to accept that the awesomeness existed because of the business and Harmon’s working relationship with NBC. You can’t complain too much about the beach house taken away from you if mommy and daddy were paying the rent, you know?
That’s fair, and I’m in no way defending the business of television as perfect; indeed, as far as the network side goes I’m not sure it isn’t a busted flush entirely. Putting reductive arguments in Josh’s mouth doesn’t serve anyone, though.
S’okay if I put a reproductive argument in Josh’s mouth instead?
holycalamity, you can complain about it if you’re one of three kids who paid his share of what the beach house cost and the other two decided it wasn’t worth it, so they didn’t pay. I paid for Community by watching the commercials. It sucks that not enough people did the same and I’m going to complain about it.
Taco, that’s fair, but there is a difference between caring that something changed and not acknowledging why it changed. It’s totally fine to be pissed that Community had shitty ratings, but IMO it doesn’t really make sense to vilify NBC for canceling it. I’m not saying that you personally shit on NBC for canceling it, but I think a lot of people did in the immediate wake of Harmon’s firing, and I think that’s what the OP was referring to.
I think he created a great thing and that he may very well do so again, and I can’t say anything about the show without him until there’s actually BEEN an episode without him.
Oh man, I’m being reasonable.
*checks pulse*
*takes aspirin*
*shows dong on chat roulette*
Whew. Crisis averted.
dan harmon always comes across as really cool dude but maybe he should try creating in a less expensive medium.
I’me gonna take that as sarcasm, and if so, BRILLIANT
Marc Maron is guest hosting G4′s Attack of the Show this week, and last night he scored a major coupe
Nice work, Marc!
Or did you mean “coup”?
Thank you, Otto.
Oh that’s just a nice piece of interneting right there. Well done sir.
Just when I thought Stinky pete had won the non-existent comment of the week. Way to step up the game.
If only Harmon could toe the line more, just like you Josh, then maybe the world would be a more profitable place.
It’s cool that he’s not acting like a totally blameless victim.
But this is the internet, goddammit. Righteous indignation is how we roll.
just FYI, Dan Harmon was on Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show nearly a month ago. They talk for like 2 hours [www.hulu.com]
“but again, he didn’t know how to play the game”
I do not think that excuses Sony or NBC for their actions and your response seems pretty flippant about a show that was really unlike anything on television. In my perfect world ‘Arrested Development’ and ‘Community’ are on back to back and it is the most perfect blissful hour of television ever.
If I can disagree without being disagreeable for a moment, the first interview with Dan Harmon I know of, after his firing, was about three weeks ago on Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show (which you can watch for free on YouTube, if the thought of a 2-hour interview sounds appealing–it was for me).
As an aside, my thanks to Matt for indirectly leading me to KPCS: you mentioned the hilarious Paget Brewster in a post a few years ago. I had no idea who she was. I looked for a clip with her and found an episode of this jewel of a show with Paget as the guest.
You really need a disclaimer on your work. So bad may cause cancer.
The fans being upset of how Harmon was booted from his own show was uncalled for ?
So you think its ok for someone to find out they’ve been replaced from the internet.
Thats professional, thats just business.
Screw that, NBC/Sony handled Harmon’s firing in a amateurish way. People are upset my little robot friend because of a little thing called empathy. Perhaps you should try to development some sometime.
People are voicing their disgust over how Harmon was treated and they don’t want the show to change. Its well known that NBC fought with Harmon over alot of episodes, The D&D one was the most famous fight, it was basically “fine we’ll put it on the air but if it tanks you’re fired”. We almost didn’t have that amazing episode, Harmon had to fight for it, and he did because this was his baby, no one else is going to fight like that.
Seriously, worst piece I have read on the internet in a long time, and I just came from reading comments over at youtube.
Well said! Clearly some of us can make constructive comments
“I found the outpouring of grief that Harmon received after being booted from Community very uncalled for”
I don’t get why people have to be heartless dicks. An extremely talented guy, who has struggled with depression, despite his self-depracating good humour, gets fired, and you’re saying we have to much sympathy? Would he have to put up with this crap from many other industries? Perhaps, but it would be met by sympathy and solidarity.
Don’t apply a different standard for TV, just because only dicks and hacks are supposed to be in TV.