Dan Harmon’s Reddit AMA Summery

Yesterday Dan did an AMA on Reddit, so I’m going through all his answers and picking out some good ones.
These are all copied basically exactly as is, so don’t blame any spelling errors on me.

the_peppers asked: “How has your enjoyment of the creative process changed over the years? Does your greater experience mean you can see the outcomes and possibilities more vividly, or are you now just a jaded, joyless husk?”

Dan had this to say: “Each year I’m getting more and more joy out of the process than the outcome…that may be because I’ve been fortunate to have great outcomes and are taking them for granted but I like to think I’m remapping my neurology and interpreting certain experiences differently. I like talking to other people about how to tackle a story. If I were a character in a movie, my “arc” would definitely have something to do with a journey from isolation to collaboration. In other words, as I near my retirement, my real joy has become exploiting younger writers.”

txjimbob asked: “Hey Dan, are there any songs you can’t listen to anymore due to strong emotional attachment?”

Dan said: “At first that sounded like the craziest question because if a song was capable of affecting you on that level why wouldn’t you put it on a loop, but then I remembered that when I was younger, after a breakup, if the breakup wasn’t entirely my idea, there were probably lots of songs I couldn’t handle hearing because they reminded me of the past. But that seems like a different universe now. I don’t even associate music with romantic partners anymore. So, no. But there is one song I can’t listen to without puking and that’s The Wings’ “Wonderful Christmastime.” And now Jeff Davis and I listen to it more than if we didn’t both hate it because it’s funny to us how much we hate it. Oh another song that I’d rather eat glass than ever hear again is “These Eyes.” It was one of 40 songs from the seventies playing on a loop on the classic hits station in the kitchen where I tried as hard as I could to be a dishwasher.”
Oh god now I have that fucking song stuck in my head.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE DAN HARMON?

MrRelys asked: “/u/thesixler /u/danharmon Justin Roiland and Reggie Watts were asked if they were going to be on HarmonQuest while doing an event in AltspaceVR last week. Did Justin ask you about being on the show yet? FYI they made a pact that they would only do it together!”

Dan’s response: “I don’t approve of this teamup so I’m certainly not going to reward it. If Reggie and Justin would like to individually team up with me so that I can control them, I’ll think about it, but this collective bargaining thing has to be shut down if capitalism is to succeed”

TheRose80 asked: “Any chance of a London Harmontown in future?”

Dan: “I certainly want to do a whole tour in the UK, I’m sure Jeff does too. It’ll just be a question of when it works schedule wise.”

LikeARoss0708 asked: “Hey Dan, What was it like working with Marvel? Most people are always to nice but i want to hear your honest opinion on what it’s like working with them.

P.S You’re my inspiration btw.”
Dan replied: “I gushed about it in a different answer and you’re specifically asking for less sugar coating, so I’ll honor that request in the spirit of an AMA and say here’s my honest view: studios are either auteur-oriented or they’re team oriented. Both methods generate good and bad movies. I think it probably depends on if you’re trying to force an auteur to do the teamwork thing or if someone on your team secretly considers themselves an auteur… It’s lack of being on the same page that probably screws things up the most.

So, the least sugar coaty thing I could say, having been briefly behind that velvet rope is, I speculate that if one were to take a full time job on a Marvel project, one would certainly need to leave one hundred percent of their ego at the door and submit fully to the team. Like, beyond what you’d ever think would be enough submission. But I don’t think that’s a controversial statement or speaking out of school (I hope, gulp), I think they’re quite proud of that approach and they truly commit to it. It truly feels over there like if a kid brought in a pizza and had a suggestion about Spider-Man, they wouldn’t be like “get out of here pizza boy,” they’d write it down. And the track record shows that this results in some great movies.”

lillyloo422 asked “Community really struck me. At one end I found myself laughing in tears and on the other I found it profoundly tragic at times. Is this something that manifested on its own or was the polarity something always ingrained in the show?

Maybe I’m completely off base here. I don’t know. Either way it’s a great show and I appreciate your work.”
Dan’s reply “It was intentional. Life is a roller coaster and stories need to be somewhat unpredictable in their endings to be effective. Nothing’s less predictable than gettin’ all sloppy and sad after a big laugh. We wanted the show to be visceral. It was on at 8pm Thursdays. Our lead in was Access Hollywood.”

xtremekhalif asked: “In your head, do you know what happened to the Community characters after season 6, or is that something you would come up with if you wrote a movie?”
Dan replied: “Definitely the latter.”

Hope we get to see that movie one day.

22-Faces asked Dan: “Was Chevy Chase the kindest, easiest person you’ve ever worked with on Community?”
Dan’s response: “Yes!”
Obviously sarcasm, but I laughed.

tsr3 asked: “Hey Dan, I’ve watched everyting you’ve ever made. Do you have any plans for ex-community actors to make cameo appearances in Rick and Morty Season 3?”
Dan replied: “Are you kidding me, fuck those people!

Well, I’ll tell you right now, Joel McHale is in an RAM season 3 episode and I literally just came to this AMA from a record session with Keith David reprising his role as the U.S. President.”

tbk6212 asked: “What’s your personal best Roy score?”
to which Dan responded:
“I’m not as good as other players at retaining my real-life memories, so I tend to end up with a pretty low score doing the same thing over and over again in Roy. When the teacher tells the class to think about a career, I choose writing in order to avoid hard work, then I end up moving to Hollywood and working pretty hard for 20 years and I finally get to do a roleplaying show on a streaming service, but then when I’m promoting it by doing a reddit AMA, someone always asks about my Roy score at which point my brain ‘aofj fqwe jfdflalsdf adkafa adfa”

Frajer asked: “Why do you think Community and Rick and Morty have such devoted fandoms?”
Dan: “I think it’s that Community and Rick and Morty don’t punish obsession. I remember Megan Ganz coming to work on Community and she seemed kind of bummed out and told us that her therapist, having listened to all of her frustrations about working on Community, finally said, “but isn’t it just a show?” And the reason Ganz was bummed out by that was because she knew right then and there that she now had to go and find another therapist.
Nobody that worked on Community or that works on Rick and Morty has the capacity to regard the show as unimportant – people that feel that way quit – and I think you can feel through the screen that if you were to approach someone working on Rick and Morty with a costume or a tattoo or a question that indicated that Rick and Morty was YOUR LIFE, you wouldn’t risk that person going “ew, you got a Rick and Morty tattoo?” The shows I like and the shows i like to think I make are shows whose wildest dream is to be studied, loved, analyzed, etc.”

appleman73 asked: “What was your favourite part of working on Community?”
Dan: “My favorite part of working on Community was getting to work with Chris McKenna, and learning from him (and from Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan) how to start transitioning from sealed-off, alienated writer guy into connected collaborator guy. Talking to other writers about how to tell a story the best way possible, sharing personal experiences and mining them for premises, and just generally being holed up in a room somewhere on a movie lot with a bunch of smart, funny people working together to try to make a perfect show, I always miss that feeling and it changed my life.”

MaddoxJKingsley asked: “What’s something you’ve always wanted to be asked during a Q&A, and what would your response be?”
Dan’s long reply lol: “Q: “Dan, it seems like people tend to assume you’re sexist because you don’t shower and have that oppositional defiant disorder edginess that often comes with closet chauvinism among comedy writers, but is it true you’re, like, super pro-actively invested in the obliteration of the entertainment industry’s glass ceiling?”

A: I’m glad you asked that, Kevin, but you see, even with that question, we’re already slipping into progress’ biggest impedance within the male worldview which is the unspoken characterization of feminism as some kind of charity or favor. While pro-active steps need to be taken for any effective change to occur, in my opinion, my taking of those steps has never been me “doing right” by someone else. I’ve only followed my own inner sense of correctness in seeking out the most talented writers of any biological composition on the planet Earth and obliterating the obstacles between them and the achievement of their dreams.

Q: “Can I ask a followup question?”

A: Yes, if that’s allowed.

Q: “Can we assume the same goes for race, aren’t you, like, unbeknownst to most of the public, a huge advocate of racial people?”

A: Yes, Kevin, I have long said that racial people are just as great in any situation capitalism can muster as their more traditional, non-racial counterparts, but again, please stop giving me credit for making the world better because to me, I’m just engaging in common sense.

Q: “What about LGBTs?”

A: Kevin I hate to check you but I think you left a Q out of there –

Q: “- Oh, fuck -”

A: – Kevin, calm down, we’re not going to become better people by punishing each other’s ignorance, it’s okay for you to be a flawed person. The answer to your question is yes, a thousand times yes, I am an advocate of literally everything it’s possible to advocate and you can look that up, there’s a paper trail, not that that’s what this is about.

Q: “So, in summary, is it safe to say that you’re like one of the only straight white middle aged men that the world shouldn’t punish for the cultural atrocities of the before-fore times?”

A: Look, you said it, not me! I’m just a writer!”

hadenwarrik asked: “Will Erin be back for (HarmonQuest) season 2?”
Dan replied: “Yes! I’m sure a lot of people agree she was a major part of what made season 1 fun, you can’t just willy nilly throw together good chemistry between performers. And imagine how toxic and nutty it would be to replace someone on your cast whose only crime had been giving the concept of marrying you a whirl. The live action parts of season 1 were shot smack in the middle of that marriage’s most challenging chapter, so I’m assuming it’s going to be a cake walk for both of us now. If you’re a casting director on a show, I recommend hiring Erin McGathy because she’s clearly unflappable.”

He also replied to a deleted comment, which was clearly someone insulting Erin. Which is also far too common on the HarmonTown subreddit by the way…
“General life advice: you invalidate your opinion when you present it tactlessly because nobody trusts the tastes of someone that can so catastrophically misjudge things like charisma or appropriateness”

ediculous asked: “Are there any plans to start another role-playing campaign? I remember Spencer mentioning possibly using a different system, like Fate, to avoid contractual complications. I’m a few episodes behind so my apologies if this was brought up recently.”
Dan’s reply: “You mean in the podcast. Yeah, we should try to figure out something. I’d like to start fresh with a new genre, move the gameplay segment from the end of the show (when I’m hopelessly drunk) to the middle of the show (when I’m super sexy drunk) and make a decision to keep it among people that will basically be available every show. Like, me, Davis and Steve Levy for instance. We could call it Advanced Sausage and Sausage.”

MayorOfButtsburgh asked: “Hey Dan! Any news on the second season of Great Minds? I need more of you and /u/thesixler
in my life.”
Dan said: “Great Minds is tragically on hold for a bit….the only way to do that show was to shoot from 7am to 7pm on saturdays and sundays and after doing that for 10 episodes worth of time while in the thick of Rick, I was in danger of …well, I don’t know what the risk is, “burning out?” I remember one sunday night I was alone at my house having come home from shooting Great Minds and I had to get up in the morning to go to Rick and Morty and something weird happened, like I started laughing and shivering like a weirdo, and I just kind of noted that, like “okay, that’s not normal, I think humans might need weekends.”

Dan was asked about Rick and Morty season 3’s premiere by a few people, and he can’t say when it’s gonna happen yet.
They’re working on it, just be patient and don’t resort to pathetic posts on the Rick and Morty Subreddit saying Dan and the crew don’t take their jobs seriously, and should quit.

And never ever ever ever ever compare making that show to making South Park.

He did say this about a Ball Fondlers spinoff (yes I know he’s 100% joking lol)
“If it’s not clear by now that I’m willing to make anything, I guess I have more work ahead of me!”

I think that’s most of the responses, I might edit this a bit more and add a few other ones.