Dan Harmon Is Sorry for 'Saying Things' and Not 'Thinking About Other People'
Dan Harmon feels really bad about the terrible things he said yesterday about the Community season he wasn't in charge of because, you know, he got fired, and he's sorry because he didn't think about other people first, which doesn't make a lot of sense considering pretty much the entire TV world listens to the drip of his every word. On Monday, during an episode of his "Harmontown" podcast, Community's new/old showrunner compared watching the fourth season of the show — the season he spent watching from home, on DVD, like the rest of us plebes — to "being held down and watching your family get raped on a beach," among other gross things. That was the worst, though. After Harmon's comments got a bunch of coverage, a no-brainer considering Harmon said previously he would not comment on the show's fourth season, he's now trying to apologize for his dumb mistake.
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"I feel bad if I made anyone feel bad with my comments in harmontown. It's a dirty, personal comedy podcast, not charismatic for quoting," he tweeted Tuesday morning. "I like making stuff that pleases people, I like being honest about my feelings but I hate hurting other people, especially community fans," he added, before unloading a much longer Tumblr post explaining how he came to realize how dumb his comments were:
I went to bed feeling great, woke up and started work on season five of Community with our exciting season five staff. I took them to lunch, checked my tweets, discovered my name in several headlines next to several bad words, and, as usual, it was then that I started to consider how my words might affect other people if viewed as headlines. After five seconds of thinking, I realized, as usual, that other people might be hurt, and that I really need to do this whole “saying things and thinking about other people” cycle in a different order at some point. I think it would make my podcast shorter but I think there’s a lot of listeners that would consider that an upgrade, too.
It's hard to reconcile a writer like Harmon, who is supposed to pour over every word and nuance in his television shows, being so tone-deaf to his own comments that he didn't realize the effect they would have until the next morning.
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But he did deliver a heartfelt apology that seems like he recognizes what he said was unbecoming of someone in his position. But, again, come on, fam. He's speaking in a public forum. He knows journalists listen to his podcast. He's one of the most covered behind-the-scenes figures in television, the most blogged-about, dramatized comedy showrunner in the age of the showrunner. He knows his words carry weight. Harmon needs to recognize the microscope he's working under — after Sony brought him back to run his show, after firing him, and when most people thought Community would have been cancelled by now. But, hey, he's still got a job. At least he's got that going for him.
