Community, the tv show

harmon's always been a piece of shit. he's a child. you're allowed to know this and still like the show.

After listening to the WTF with the guy who did Scrubs and Cougar Town, I'm tempted to believe that a lot of these TV dudes are children.

DAN HARMON IS NOT A PIECE OF SHIT

― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, April 1, 2012 4:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Right on. Not getting the whole "he's a child" bit either, unless wanting your creation to reflect your vision makes you a child. Sounds like Chase probably just got what was coming to him.

um, it's more than that. the guy can't not respond to a single human being disagreeing with him in any form without blowing up and acting like he's been victimized and i'm not talking about people connected to the show. his twitter is embarrassing. the chevy thing is perfectly in character and i don't think involving his wife and daughter in the mess would ever be "coming to him." i would never really care to be in the same room as the guy.

seriously, i love the show he's created and think he's brilliant when it comes to crafting his vision, but following his twitter for even a week will reveal that the dude really struggles with basic civility and getting along with other people with big egos.

I remember him writing a lot of horrible things about his girlfriend, when she broke up with him -- he seems to have a lot of anger issues. Otoh, Chevy seems awful as well so I don't feel sorry for anybody in this situation.

i feel sorry for his daughter, i can't even imagine being in that situation

what, having chevy chase for a father?

I haven't actually been following his Twitter feed; my impression of Harmon mainly comes from the DVD commentaries and interviews.

OK, on another viewing, this was brilliant, up there with top-notch Simpsons at least. The satire of corporate personhood is actually really on-point, the tribute to Orwell is masterful, and I love the way they just throw in random gags like Pierce drinking ink. Maybe I was just tired when I watched the first time.

I liked how the catchphrase to bring in the eavesdropping security people was 'the bread is stale'.

This whole situation with Harmon and Chase is really awful. For the good of the show, though, I'd ditch Chase in a heartbeat - in the past couple of seasons they've tried to show Pierce as being terminally insecure and regretful, which is fine and made him tolerable, but in this season he's just a villain that the rest of the characters can rally around opposing (when they notice him at all). If it's been this terrible working with Chase, I'm not sure why he'd still be on the show - those Paley clips show everyone locked into a forced-laughter circle of contempt. It's professional for actors to congratulate and praise each other publicly, even when things didn't go so well on set, but this ... man.

Loved the drinking-ink bits though. Revisited a few eps from earlier in the season to see if things had dropped off in quality in the third season, but we had foosball, halloween ... it's been good overall.

Oh, and I'm definitely aware that Pierce's character weakness this season might be by Harmon's design who would be happy at this point to starve Chevy of any reason to continue on the show.

Agh I'd forgotten Advanced Gay, that was so painful I haven't seen the whole thing

in this season he's just a villain that the rest of the characters can rally around opposing (when they notice him at all)

I thought this was more true of s2, esp "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons"? Maybe I'm getting my seasons mixed up.

that's what i felt like too

e.g. In "Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts", Pierce was more like his trying-too-hard s1 self.
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Pierce was a villain in S2, and not in S3 (where really the villain is Jeff)

Yeah, that was a hasty conclusion on my part. Anyway, hoping that the absence of Evil Pierce (he's dead) makes its way into the plot somehow

yup. Pierce def chilled out for s3.

xpost

i think i definitely prefer the garden variety sinister of Pierce in s3 than the ott evil Pierce we got in s2.

Yeah, for all my veneration of s2 and bitching about s3, I also think Pierce's character is being handled much better now.

feel like seeing those Paley clips as evidence that everyone is in some deep circle of loathing requires you to watch them w/ a very specific intent, also why the hell did i watch those

this interview with the female cast members includes a part where they talk about chevy's humor -- they are diplomatic and say things like "his comedy is from another time, it was more acceptable to say certain things then," but i think it's clear that yvette, at least, isn't fond of him.

He's proabably all, "Hey, Yvette, let's do that word association routine I did with Richard Pryor! C'mon, it killed in '75!"

In this interview, he singles out "the two white girls" as being "more like people that we can all understand". So yeah, I can't imagine Yvette is too fond of him.

haha dwc

I think it was just a few months ago that Chevy introduced Gillian Jacobs to some on-set reporters as "Gillian Anderson".

okay that is funny

loved this ep, subway was brilliant, and the battle over the forts had a great faux-lotr feel

"britta unfiltered"

i got the penis joke but tbh i don't get what's funny about britta unfiltered

http://www.brita.com/intl/

oh i see. they must have been saving that one

http://28.media.tumblr.com/vWmLsf1oEk2lj05rnYvOjUKKo1_400.jpg

There have been other, less lulzy Britta/Brita references in the past.

Belushi OTM.

man chevy looks v modern in that pic, not v lol 70s

He was one of the less overtly-hippie members of the OG SNL cast.

Chevy is probably still doing the kind of stuff that killed in his frat house

playing Steely Dan songs on drums?

upon wiki-ing chevy to see how old he was, i learned that his real first name is cornelius

man chevy looks v modern in that pic, not v lol 70s

I always hate myself a little bit for thinking he looked hot back then, because he is such an obnoxious tool.

I was afraid to post that I actually found that picture to make him look a little hot.. thank you for being brave for all of us, Nicole.

I was wondering where I'd seen that smirk before...
http://m.popstar.com/News/Celebs/Dane_Cook/danecook11.jpg

chevy's biography, which he authorised and which was written by a friend, is seriously one of the worst, most badly written books i have ever, ever read. so disappointing, and the black sheep of the snl-related corner of my bookshelf.

Man, I wish I hadn't seen that Chase polaroid now, because he kind of looks like one of my friends in it—someone it never occurred to me looks like Chevy Chase—and now my perception of him will forever now be tainted.

if they write pierce out they should invite bill murray to guest star as his killer

YES

Dan Harmon's been trying to get Bill Murray to play Jeff's dad for years now, for the exact same meta-casting reasons.

I bet they could get Bill Murray if they set up a camera at some remote location, like a phone booth in the desert, hit record, and told him to just show up and record whatever he wanted. And then they could try to incorporate that resultant mess into the show.