In our unending quest to bring you every bit of Dan Harmon news in existence, we are pleased to report the Community creator did his second Ask Me Anything at Reddit yesterday. He answered questions for, oh, about nine freaking hours. There were over 4700 comments with over 120 of them coming from Harmon, and we’ve scoured these for some of our favorite answers and comments.
Harmon was there to promote Anomalisa, the stop-motion animated film project he’s doing with Charlie Kaufman (there’s still time to contribute to the Kickstarter). While there, the conversation often turned towards Community and a bunch of Chevy Chase questions. We learned a lot. For example, did you know Joel McHale’s penis is the exact size and shape of a crowbar? You’ll learn about that, as well as what Alison Brie smells like, the type of porn film Dan Harmon would direct, who could have played Pierce instead of Chevy Chase, and who Dan Harmon thinks would win in a battle royale between all the Community castmembers, in the pages that follow.
How often do you have fantasies about Alison Brie?
Dan Harmon: 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.
What’s Alison Brie smell like?
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?
If you were to direct a porn film, what would the storyline be?
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.
I saw your Instragram picture with Mitchell Hurwitz. Is this a hint that you may have an Arrested cameo?
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.
Are you attached to a Community movie script at all? Would you do it if you were asked?
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.
If the show invited you back in any capacity would you take it? Or would it be hard to not have the final say? Also who would win in a fist fight between all the cast?
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.
Speaking of that fist fight, Harmon later remembered that Jim Rash would have to be figured into it:
We also learned Jeff would be meeting his dad soon:
Did you have any plans for the 4th season of Community before shit went down? Do you know if the new showrunners are allowed to use any of those ideas? I guess my main question is, does anyone still working on the show know what your original goal for season 4 was and plan to honor it?
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…!
Why did we never get to see a Troy and Abed in the Morning web series?
because network TV doesn’t know the internet exists yet.
Could you give us the speech you give new writers you hire?
“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.
What is your all-time favourite episode of Community?
I think the Dungeons and Dragons episode in season 2.
Did a person dressed as a dinosaur molest Britta?
Yes.
Were you involved in the casting decisions? Of so, was there anyone that absolutely nailed it on their audition that you gave no delay to casting them?
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.
How much are you allowed to reveal about your original vision for the future of the show?
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.
Will you watch the new episodes?
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.
What’s the storyline you never got to do on Community that you most regret?
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.
The rumour mill says that Chevy Chase walked off set at the end of filming for Season 3 because he refused to do something. What did he refuse to do?
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.
Why did he refuse to do it?
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.
In Season 2, Pierce turned into a villain of sorts. Was this a reflection of how you and the other writers felt about Chevy Chase or a coincidence?
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.
do you think chevy understands most of the jokes on the show?
no
Did NBC make you cast Chevy Chase, or was it something you intended to do from the start?
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.
Given Chevy’s notorious reputation, did you have worries about his casting when the show first started?
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.
If Chevy Chase and a stray dog were trapped in a burning car, and you could only save one of them, what would you name the dog?
Lucky
Who is the best person in show business that you’ve ever worked with?
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.
Who’s the funniest cast member off-screen? I bet it’s Leonard.
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!!!