💼 Careercow Dan Harmon - Creator of Community, co-creator of Rick and Morty, and barely functional alcoholic

[Water-T]

An attitude like that on Twitter and he's only been found to harass one woman so far? I call bullshit, especially after that "all-female writing team."

I'm starting to think that Season 4 is taking too long to write because the ladies don't even want to be in the same room with him. Could explain why season 3 took forever to come out compared to s1 and s2, since the women writers got hired around the time of s3.

 

[:thinking:]

I'm starting to think that Season 4 is taking too long to write because the ladies don't even want to be in the same room with him. Could explain why season 3 took forever to come out compared to s1 and s2, since the women writers got hired around the time of s3.

Nah, the easier explanation is that when you add more people to a team, it will only slow things down.
One 9-month pregnant woman does not equal 9 1-month pregnant women, no matter how hard you try.

 

[AdSense]

I think a big part of it IS Harmon. He's notoriously hard to work with and has a habit of shoving people he likes into everything regardless of how good they are at said thing. Erin was shoehorned into the podcast and Harmon Quest, to which she said that she wasn't terribly comfortable with and ended up trying way too hard to make up for it.

I was a fan of Dan's up until the divorce with Erin happened. Didn't find out about the Cody thing until a month ago but it all made sense. I'd still listen to Harmontown on and off because Dan isn't great by himself, but he has a knack for finding really interesting people with stories to tell and providing a platform for them to do it. Then the venue thing happened and the next few podcasts were just him being by himself ranting about nothing while Jeff tried to steer him onto better topics. It's the same path that Rick and Morty went down.

 

[Rekkington]

I think a big part of it IS Harmon. He's notoriously hard to work with and has a habit of shoving people he likes into everything regardless of how good they are at said thing. Erin was shoehorned into the podcast and Harmon Quest, to which she said that she wasn't terribly comfortable with and ended up trying way too hard to make up for it.

I was a fan of Dan's up until the divorce with Erin happened. Didn't find out about the Cody thing until a month ago but it all made sense. I'd still listen to Harmontown on and off because Dan isn't great by himself, but he has a knack for finding really interesting people with stories to tell and providing a platform for them to do it. Then the venue thing happened and the next few podcasts were just him being by himself ranting about nothing while Jeff tried to steer him onto better topics. It's the same path that Rick and Morty went down.

I stopped listening not long after episode 100, what's the story on this venue thing?
Someone really needs to put the same work into this as we do with Dobson and Moviebob, there's all sorts of weird shit buried in the past and probably all over Reddit. The Harmontown subteddit is some of the most insufferable people you can imagine. I wish we had the old Channel 101 Forum posts to compare, he was startlingly normal back then (when he was big into weed instead of vodka.)

 

[AdSense]

what's the story on this venue thing?

Exact details are fuzzy, but Harmon moved the show to Starburns Castle but didn't realize that you need fire marshals on the premises. The show was shut down because they didn't have one there, Dan spent the podcast talking about how he was sick of doing the show with an active participating audience anyway, and then moved it to an actual recording studio. Since then it's been less of Dan venting his feelings at strangers and more Dan having an uncomfortable breakdown while his friends yes-man him through it.

I don't know if they moved back or not since it got way too hard to listen to even as background noise.

 

[Implacable Birch]

this is extremely but i hope dan harmon gets fired and they have seth macfarlane come in and do writing and voices in his place.

 

[Hari Seldon]

this is extremely but i hope dan harmon gets fired and they have seth macfarlane come in and do writing and voices in his place.

Do we really need more musical scenes in Rick and Morty? "Get shwifty" was enough.

 

[Implacable Birch]

i want to see rick and morty with full musical numbers and references to current events and dan harmon go on a gigantic homocidal rant on twitter before he drives into a telephone poll on his way to get more booze

 

[MagneticTowels]

Season 3 was meant to have 14 episodes. I wonder what happened in the four that were cut. Maybe Dan Harmon refused to budge about something Justin Roiland wanted?

 

[Implacable Birch]

TV Show Writing is one of the worst creatively involved professions out there. Writers who aren't juggling some serious royalties they can coast on or some other kind of more lucrative gig are going to wind up like Dan Harmon. Especially with his kind of attitude. I mean yeah, the guy is talented, but who gives a shit. Everyone can write stuff.

A little fftopic: but Ricky Gervais did a really good interview with Garry Shandling about this sorta thing. (He takes the piss out of Ricky during the entire interview too, which is great)

 

[Tard]

I'm so fucking glad that rick and Morty is a meme now because of Dan's need to force "I'm an intellectual and edgy" crap in all the time and now nobody likes the show anymore. And from what I've read, adult swim said they aren't thinking of doing a new season anytime soon (im assuming because they realize the shitshow it's become). I kinda feel bad for Justin but Dan's narcissism and hiring bad female writers because he wants to fuck them ultimately lead to the downfall of the show. Or so I think

 

[José Mourinho]

I kinda feel bad for Justin but Dan's narcissism and hiring bad female writers because he wants to fuck them ultimately lead to the downfall of the show.

Isn't that a response to the criticism to some journalists complaining back then how Rick & Morty didn't have female writers and thus they picked for the sake of it and kicked off the male ones who contributed to Season 2?

 

[Rekkington]

Isn't that a response to the criticism to some journalists complaining back then how Rick & Morty didn't have female writers and thus they picked for the sake of it and kicked off the male ones who contributed to Season 2?

I don't think Dan wanted to fuck them, he worships women and sees them as perfect and himself as a gross pervert, like Louis CK. And if you're like them and see women as perfect creatures who are on Earth to put up with flawed stupid men, you can only cast yourself as the unworthy mortal and them as gods. That's why I don't think Harmon has it in him to molest or rape or use his "power" to get what he wants, despite him being accused of that. It sounds like he had a crush on some writer girl who, like many of her kind, learned they can get a lot of desired attention by treating social media like a feelings journal.

But here's the thing about Dan: he's a piece of shit. He's the exact bully he hates. Every single one of his exes has said as such, and some may blame it on the drinking but as any proper drunk will tell you, drinking doesn't transform you into a different person it just has you being a heightened version of yourself. So while I don't think he has it in him to impose his sexuality on others because he hates himself and adores women too much, he seems to have a streak of verbally and psychologically abusing them.

I'm not sure what to make of that, but it may have something to do with him sabotaging everything he is close to and glorifying everything he doesn't understand. He loves and adores and worships women, but his girlfriend is an annoying bitch who holds him back and annoys him. TV is the greatest medium for telling stories, but his shows need to be run into the ground. He loves his fans in the abstract but shits on them whenever they talk to him. He pays a lot of lip service for being on the side of the little guy but, like Rick, he has too much of a desire for tyranny in him that he thinks these flaws are minor dents rather than personality-defining spikes.

This is starting to get away from me but I think there's something there.

 

[:thinking:]

I'm so fucking glad that rick and Morty is a meme now because of Dan's need to force "I'm an intellectual and edgy" crap in all the time and now nobody likes the show anymore. And from what I've read, adult swim said they aren't thinking of doing a new season anytime soon (im assuming because they realize the shitshow it's become). I kinda feel bad for Justin but Dan's narcissism and hiring bad female writers because he wants to fuck them ultimately lead to the downfall of the show. Or so I think

I also believe Adult Swim was promised 14 episodes and only got 10, so I can imagine there's some unhappiness there.

 

[DonaldChump]

What a creepy thing to say in public. If it's in private with people that know you're kidding- go for it. But this is the public face Dan chooses to show.

I mean his public face is an aggressive, alcoholic, selfish, opinionated asshole. He's kind of shameless. Even if he wanted to reign it back in, at this point, the damage is done. Kinda like Jim Morrison (his public persona being that he's just completely trashed all the time) but not as cool.

 

[Imposteroak]

For those speculating on the Rick and Morty season 4 Delays here is some stuff to keep in mind.

• First off, televised cartoon networks and especially Adult Swim are notably squirrelly. By this I mean the reason they air things the way they do, green light or turn away shows, or scheduling, seems to be dependent on what detached execs think will make money. From what I gather from adult swim they bank on a few "hits" now and then and then use the money and cred from those to produce their weird stoner shit that they love. I've never really seen adult swim capitalize on any successes they have in a meaningful way, its almost like they don't wanna be taken seriously so that they can just dick around indefinitely.
• Secondly, production from show to show can take a lot of different forms, it definitely sounds like whatever Rick and Morty are doing is pretty inefficient though. Any delays in animation can drive up costs really quickly.. It sounds like Dan's habit of heavily rewriting scripts and gunking up the whole process doesn't help.
• Finally, the fact that Roiland has implied that they are sitting on there thumbs at this point makes it sounds like they aren't even ready to write anything. Which makes me wonder if they are making big staff changes. Anyone with more knowledge on the industry feel free to correct me, but that or contract renewal is all I can think that would be causing delays for such a big draw.

Idk, this is really all speculation and the cartoon community has been trying to figure out what the hell adult swim is doing for years now. While I doubt Dan is the soul cause or will ever be canned, I'm sure he isn't helping.

 

[Tard]

Isn't that a response to the criticism to some journalists complaining back then how Rick & Morty didn't have female writers and thus they picked for the sake of it and kicked off the male ones who contributed to Season 2?

I assumed it was a mix of that and with his past of being a pervert and how bad the female writers he chose were. Like surely he could have found better female writers, I don't get any other reason why you would hire people so awful at their job when there are ones more competent

 

[Henry Bemis]

I assumed it was a mix of that and with his past of being a pervert and how bad the female writers he chose were. Like surely he could have found better female writers, I don't get any other reason why you would hire people so awful at their job when there are ones more competent

There's a difference between "FEMINIST writers" and "writers who happen to be feminist."

 

[:thinking:]

I assumed it was a mix of that and with his past of being a pervert and how bad the female writers he chose were. Like surely he could have found better female writers, I don't get any other reason why you would hire people so awful at their job when there are ones more competent

He didn't want to pay for good writers, but he wanted to be woke af.
So he hired a bunch of young, naive girls and declared himself king of womankind.

 

[One Man Bland]

Since then it's been less of Dan venting his feelings at strangers and more Dan having an uncomfortable breakdown while his friends yes-man him through it.

That pretty much sums everything that's been wrong with anything Dan's worked on in recent years. One thing I've always found really telling about the current atmosphere with R&M's creative team is that in the behind the scenes promos for season 3, every single one consists of Harmon and a pair of yes-men who back up everything Dan says while Roiland - who, in theory, should have more to say about the show being the creator and voicing the two leads - says about two sentences at most about superfluous details regarding the show. It really drives home how much Harmon's over-shadowed Roiland in terms of creative reach, the most telling be this promo about Morty's Mind-Blowers where Harmon and his brown-nosers wax on for ages about the concept of memory and repeating mistakes while seeming to deliberately cut out the bit of dialogue where Rick basically says he just wants to make a fun clip-show.

There's also another bit in the same episode where Summer comments "No wonder you're constantly fighting and behind schedule" which in hindsight I think is really telling as to how bad the production issues for the season really were.

One last thing I also noticed is that Harmon just seems to be completely incompatible with improv in general. Looking back at the video @Haramburger shared about the Game Grumps Youtube Red show he produces, I noticed that there's one bit where the guy comments that it seemed like an extremely weird choice to take two e-celebs best know for improvisational humor and keep them shackled to a rigidly structured, cliche script that doesn't play to their strengths. And I don't think it's no coincidence that season 3 is almost entirely devoid of the signature stutters that Roiland's improv line-reading has come to be known for either.

Maybe it's Harmon's :autism: means he can't stand the spontinaity of improv, but considering he also apparently throws a shit-fit if an episode doesn't conform to his rigid Story Circle bullshit, I wouldn't be surprised if it started weighing down on both the show and Roiland's creative style.