How Community's Cast & Crew Helped Dan Harmon Through The Series' Lowest Moments
As a massive "Community" fan, I have listened to countless hours of interviews and commentary tracks with the people involved in the show, and two things are incredibly clear. They cared deeply about the material and were dedicated to deliver the best show they could, and making the show was sometimes a long, arduous nightmare that stretched on into the wee hours of the morning with script pages constantly being delivered to set. Every episode was a new adventure, oftentimes completely changing genres, looks, and tones depending on what creator Dan Harmon and his writers looked to tackle and satirize that week.
Add on top of that the stress that "Community" was constantly on the brink of cancellation. Yes, it had its sect of highly devoted fans — myself included — but our passion for the show didn't change the fact that we were relatively small in numbers. Harmon has often spoken about his troubles making the show, which eventually led him to being fired after its third season before being brought back for its fifth. It got bad enough that, as he told That Shelf back in 2014, "I've had moments where I come in and think 'I just want to k*** myself. I don't want to be here anymore.'"
When you are in a situation like that, it can be very easy to be completely consumed by it and lose yourself in the stress and anguish. Luckily for Harmon, he was able to find solace in the most important thing one can in a work environment: his co-workers, a cast and crew ready and willing to take the punches with aplomb.
'The net result is the show stays good'
One way to deal with the struggles of motivation and drive is to have people around you that make you want to try harder and be better. For instance, I know that I want my writing to be up to the standards that my editors want it to be. In the case of Dan Harmon, its his phenomenal cast of actors and all the incredibly creative folks around him that made it worth showing up every morning on "Community." As he told That Shelf:
"[T]here are so many people around me that are having a good day. The actors are creative people and the reason that we worship them so much on the show is because, well, number one, we love looking at their pretty faces, and number two, the people with those pretty faces bare all of it. They have to show up and be those characters all the time no matter what's going on behind the scenes, and so does everyone else ... 'Who am I doing this for? This is stupid. I could be writing a movie right now.' On those days, Joel McHale just does ten extra push-ups. The net result is that the show stays good."
For a show like "Community" to maintain such a high level of quality (minus the gas leak year), every person needs to be completely locked in, on and off camera — and if you see someone else do that, you are more likely to get into that mindset yourself. I am glad Dan Harmon and his collaborators could recognize that, because that dedication resulted in one of the great sitcoms of all time. And if that motivation is indeed Joel McHale doing push-ups, who wouldn't put their best foot forward after that?