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

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I'm not going to lie. The first two seasons were very good. The wheels started to fall off in Season 3. There was some good ones - like Pickle Rick - but for the most part, it was bleh. It's obvious that Justin was the real talent behind the show, and Harmon and his Woke Wahmen Writer's club are just running it on fumes now.

Memeanon said:
Didn’t Harmon want 14 episodes instead of 5?
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So he said. But Harmon & His Harem barely have the talent to churn out 5 episodes in two years, and by the time they got around to 14 episodes, GRR Martin will have finished writing Game of Thrones.
 
Jack Awful said:
Rick and Morty is best when it has interesting episode concepts.
Like the one where they go inside the little universe that rick made just to power his car and in that universe they made a little universe to power their planet and in that universe they were building a universe to power their planet.

That creativity was notably lacking last season, and I'm not sure why *cough* female writers *cough*.
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Yes, like Futurama, its best episodes combine some esoteric and science fiction premises with the mundanities of normal life (e.g. finding a hive mind ... who is an ex-lover).
Pissmaster General said:
Bingo. Pop science and comedy can mesh well in the right hands, and some of the first two seasons of R&M really pulled that off. My favorite episode was the one with the alien parasites that kept replicating and introducing random characters into the family that everyone is tricked into thinking they've always known them. It was both an interesting premise I haven't seen before, and a reason to have a huge variety of random characters appear.
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Yeah, I do think that was probably the series' best ever episode. It reminds me of some of Community's best episodes, which also had clever premises, constricted settings and a similar message.

I think you could ague that they have the same rift on clip shows, having "clips" to non-existing episodes. While it does show that he can write well, I think it also shows that he has limited range, which isn't surprising given that (it seems to me) he knows a ton about late-20th century pop culture and nothing else besides.

Also, where do you think the state of the show's popularity is right now? I always thought the hiatus would allow the hype around the show to dissipate, but I don't know, has that actually happened?
 
Glad I couldn't help said:
While it does show that he can write well, I think it also shows that he has limited range, which isn't surprising given that (it seems to me) he knows a ton about late-20th century pop culture and nothing else besides.
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It's funny you say that, because as I've watched both shows I've definitely noticed reoccurring themes across both shows that make R&M feel like a shallow retread of Community at times. I think the most obvious one, because it keeps getting pointed out in both shows, is season 3.

Season 3 of Community and Rick and Morty have a less-than-stellar reception compared to what came before it (though Community much less so) but what really struck out to me is how both of them keep getting called "the dark year" in-universe, which I'm pretty sure is influence from Dan's famous story circle at work. The initial plan for Community was to have four seasons that followed the four years of college the main character Jeff had to attend to become a lawyer again, and in the story circle the third part is supposed to be the darkest. Not surprisingly the characters in Community keep calling it a "very dark year", with the only real examples given being the times Jeff attacked his study group's table with an axe and accidentally killing someone by calling them out.

The problem with that idea, besides both of these things being played for laughs when they happened, is that season 2 had a zombie outbreak, one of the study group members got pregnant with a possibly illegitimate child and another character got hooked on pills and had to go to rehab. It's not very convincing to claim this is the dark year because of that. Similarly, Rick and Morty's third season has Rick proclaim that it'll be 'the darkest year of [their] adventures', but nothing in the season really is that dark compared to burying your alternate self's corpse or almost killing yourself. Rick gets captured and needs to escape again, there's a post-apocalyptic version in Earth again, there's yet another clip show episode which is at the very least the fourth time Dan's done one of those... Rick and Morty was already plenty dark, there's nothing they could've done to make it any more so without turning it into outright snuff and rape. I'm gunning for at least one paint ball, musical or NCIS episode in season 4 just because that's what Community did.

Dan keeps coming back to the same wells. If you pay attention, it's very noticeable.
 
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Glad I couldn't help said:
Also, where do you think the state of the show's popularity is right now? I always thought the hiatus would allow the hype around the show to dissipate, but I don't know, has that actually happened?
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Maybe it's because I fell out of the series mid-season 3 and never even finished it, but it seems less popular now. The memes have largely run their course, and being a vocal Rick & Morty fan has been cemented as one of the mainstays of atheist fedora stereotypes.

The S4 trailer has 5.3 million views after only a day, though, so the show definitely still has momentum. Rick & Morty had such a strong launch that I could see it just being to Adult Swim what South Park is to Comedy Central; just another comedy cartoon that lasts forever. Get ready for Rick & Morty season 30 when you're about to meet your grandkids and tell them all about how the show just plummeted downhill after fucking Pickle Rick in season 3, and how you weren't surprised that they spent the entirety of season 6 telling the world's most clichéd story about how Summer escaped an abusive relationship, or how in season 18 they literally stole a furry porn parody of their own show and made it canon, and now there's a lolsuit between the furry artists and Adult Swim.
 
If you watch Roilands early stuff (find it at roilandtv.com) you can tell that he needed someone to make him more marketable, make his stories more structured in order for him to have any mainstream appeal. If you compare the scattered and chaotic Unbelievable Tales (written by Roiland alone) to Sprinkles (written with Harmon) you can clearly see Harmons influence and skill set was needed to some degree to make Roilands work have mass appeal.
However now it feels like it's gone too far in the other direction now, all the soul has been sucked out of Roilands creation in an attempt to make Rick and Morty even more palatable to the public.
I can't help but wonder if Rolland is okay with these characters, that he wrote and rewrote for so many years, being reduced to rehashed catchphrase garbage and weak normie-tier references like yas kween slay.
Feels bad man.
 
This show will never make it to the 70 episodes that CN approved. With Dan Harmon's slow as molasses work ethic and his off putting personality, he will ruin the show. Its just a matter of time.
 
RumblyTumbly said:
This show will never make it to the 70 episodes that CN approved. With Dan Harmon's slow as molasses work ethic and his off putting personality, he will ruin the show. Its just a matter of time.
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He's already ruined the show. Season 3 was terrible, and now fans waited two years for just 5 episodes after they promised 10.
 
Questionable Ceviche said:
He's already ruined the show. Season 3 was terrible, and now fans waited two years for just 5 episodes after they promised 10.
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14, actually, but regardless, this season is going to suck - especially if Dan tries to cram 14 episodes' worth of material into those 5.
 
Manwithn0n0men said:
I wont lie...I liked the MESSAGE of Pickle Rick, but the execution stank
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What 'message?' To me it looked like a parody of the sci-fi trope of 'character gets turned into a thing,' but they didn't really make fun of the trope. They just used it.

That's one of my biggest gripes with recent Rick and Morty episodes. Doing trite bullshit but being self-aware doesn't make the show any better. It just makes your writers look lazy because they're clearly aware of the shit they're writing.
 
Angry Shoes said:
What 'message?' To me it looked like a parody of the sci-fi trope of 'character gets turned into a thing,' but they didn't really make fun of the trope. They just used it.

That's one of my biggest gripes with recent Rick and Morty episodes. Doing trite bullshit but being self-aware doesn't make the show any better. It just makes your writers look lazy because they're clearly aware of the shit they're writing.
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It's why most people fucking hate meta humor now.
 
MagneticTowels said:
In other words, the same thing as a copyright/trademark dispute
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Well, not exactly. A copyright/trademark dispute would be a disagreement about who owns the rights to Rick and Morty or another company took issue with how their products were presented. And calling it a “dispute” at all implies anyone, much less Roiland, is fighting for the sanctity of Rick and Morty. If there ever was such a thing.

The current dynamic of the R&M writers’ room from what I’ve seen is more like when you’ve signed a lease with a roommate to take some of the load off, and at first it goes great, but then over time you find your roommate is an obnoxious tool taking up more space and doing less work than promised and dragging in their equally obnoxious friends, so eventually you just end up coasting on autopilot while you wait for the lease to end so you can move on to greener pastures.
 
Questionable Ceviche said:
He's already ruined the show. Season 3 was terrible, and now fans waited two years for just 5 episodes after they promised 10.
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I'm just wondering how much of that is Dan's fault and how much of that is CN's fault, because it seems like there's more than one party to blame here if Harmon wanted 14 but we're getting two five episode runs instead.
 
Angry Shoes said:
What 'message?' To me it looked like a parody of the sci-fi trope of 'character gets turned into a thing,' but they didn't really make fun of the trope. They just used it.

That's one of my biggest gripes with recent Rick and Morty episodes. Doing trite bullshit but being self-aware doesn't make the show any better. It just makes your writers look lazy because they're clearly aware of the shit they're writing.
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Theme: Rick (and Beth who that season is a parallel to Rick) use their intellect to run away from their problems and hide who they are. Neither is a super profound character and both are manipulative and damaging on a generational level.

Ricks avoidance of responsibility [Turning into a pickle] and Beth's [Blaming her kids for Rick and the failure of her marriage]

And Rick's intelligence is the EXCUSE he uses to wallow in his pain
 
Jewelsmakerguy said:
I'm just wondering how much of that is Dan's fault and how much of that is CN's fault, because it seems like there's more than one party to blame here if Harmon wanted 14 but we're getting two five episode runs instead.
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It could very be that CN/Adult Swim had a hand in this because the 5 episode thing is similar to what happened with the Steven Bombs, but I’ve never really bought that CN’s decision to do this and not a result of CN struggling to plan around an entire team of procrastinators to keep the show salvageable.

Delays happen, but when you compare some of the other recent or currently aired series, these extremely long dry spells ending with only a handful of episodes is definitely not the norm. Especially when they seem almost proud of how little effort they’ve put in during the trailer.
 
One Man Bland said:
It could very be that CN/Adult Swim had a hand in this because the 5 episode thing is similar to what happened with the Steven Bombs, but I’ve never really bought that CN’s decision to do this and not a result of CN struggling to plan around an entire team of procrastinators to keep the show salvageable.

Delays happen, but when you compare some of the other recent or currently aired series, these extremely long dry spells ending with only a handful of episodes is definitely not the norm. Especially when they seem almost proud of how little effort they’ve put in during the trailer.
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>What if I told you that CN network did Stevenbombs on purpose
>What if I told you that if it wasnt for Stevenbombs the ratings on SU would have been in the toilet
 
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