A bold but true claim:Dan Harmonis a modern legend in the world of comedic television. His cult classic NBC TV seriesCommunitymanaged to bring together a horde of die-hard fans that clamored for its renewal, to the point that it was actually given a final fifth season on Yahoo! AfterCommunity, Harmon created his popular podcast,HarmonTown, which has spawned the TV seriesHarmonQuest, where Dan and his friends play an animated game of Dungeons and Dragons. Harmon’s most notable work to date though might beRick and Morty, an animated series on Adult Swim that has seemingly permeated the general subconscious, and features characters that exist in a twistedBack to the Futuremodel. You’d be hard-pressed to go almost anywhere online today and not see a reference to “PICKLE RICK!”
Harmon’s latest project is a comedic take on the world of E-Sports,Good Game,a YouTube Red original series starring the Game Grumps. He recently sat down with us to chat about the making ofGood Game, along withRick and Morty,HarmonQuest, and more (like which Marvel character he would most like to write for).
In creatingGood Game, Harmon found interest originally in the project because, as he defines it, E-Sports are the “Wild West for the modern age with individuals and corporations currently attempting to forge a new landscape.”
“When the producers came to me with this idea for a single camera sitcom,thatI had familiarity with. E-Sports not so much. Learning more about that really caught my interest, though, as these games had such high stakes and were so popular that it definitely was something I wanted to take a crack at."
“They star as an Underdog team, entering into the eyes of the world through the ‘non-corporate’ side of things, and I was able to discuss video games, specifically ‘MOBAs’ (Multiplater Online Battle Arenas) with them and one of the writers fromRick and Morty,Erica Rosbe, who is into that sort of that thing. It really helped.”
Harmon didn’t just chat with those folks about E-Sports, he also took the time to visit some of their competitions to really understand the nature of the competitive video game platform. “I was able to tour one of the facilities where a tournament was taking place, luckily, and it gave me this sense of how E-Sports was becoming akin to the NBA, becoming these huge spectacles. There are just so many ways to play video games now, people have done it for decades and will continue to do it for decades more.”
HarmonQuest
Talking with Dan aboutGood Gameled to a discussion of the other game-focused show that Harmon heads up,HarmonQuest. For those that haven’t seen it (it originally debuted on NBCU’s paid streaming service Seeso),HarmonQuestfollows Harmon, his friend/dungeon masterSpencer Crittenden, and a rotating cast of celebrity guests as they play a season-long game of Dungeons and Dragons. As Harmon explains,
“HarmonQuestwas created to provide entertainment and comedy, but also to show off the authenticity of gaming in general. Spencer is here each episode creating this amazing game for famous drunk people that is so immersive. Much like E-Sports, I always saw D&D blowing up and becoming a popular viewing experience. When I attended GenCon, which is a big gathering of gamers, you just saw booth after booth of people playing competitive tournaments with pencil and paper RPGs, and that’s always been there. There’s a long lasting appeal there.”
In promoting the show’s second season, which will change to the streaming site VRV asSeeso is now defunct, Harmon promises,
“More epic adventures this time around. Spencer did a great job this time creating a wider reaching story that is much funnier because it’s more organic, the humor flows naturally. For the first season, I somewhat ran it side-by-side with him, but this time, I slowly took my hands off the wheel and simply became one of the performers. Spencer and the line producers are like a well-oiled machine, which really makes me pleased with the season and even more proud of Spencer himself.”
Rick and Morty
This all leads us, of course, into discussing the ultra-popularRick and Morty, Harmon’s brainchild that is enjoying a fantastic new season on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. Firstly, we inquired whether the writing team re-watched the series before diving into the new episodes. Harmon told us,
“We probably should watch the entire previous seasons back to back. We may have foolishly thought that the previous seasons were in the past or, at worst, could obstruct the writing process. We are constantly alluding to how it worked in Season 1 and 2 when we looked at this current season. How they worked differently from one another and whether they worked at all! Season 2 had some of the best episodes, in my mind, but there’s a lot we have to struggle with. The amount of desire, which episodes were the best and which were the worst, the amount of questions, theories, and arguments that we got from fans … Sometimes it does bog you down, but other times you’re not worried about it. I especially don’t think that the fans should worry about it. There’s this religious sort of amorphous pointlessness in trying to compare the past to the present. Season 1 seemed like a bullet firing out of the barrel of a gun while Season 2 was more of a self-check, a little more cerebral. With Season 3, I kept worrying if I was either the gun or the self-check.”
From here, we began discussing depression and mental illness which were key themes inRick and Morty’s second season. Harmon explained,
“I think with the depression and the mental illness themes, these were happy accidents. When we examine a plot device, we try to take care not to say ‘let’s have a theme of this or that.’ It’s hard enough to come up with themes in general. WithCommunityfor example, the third season is different from the second, with underlying themes of high-functional alcoholism and insanity. Those both developed organically from the scripts. We do say some things that should happen at the start of the season, but otherwise, it’s fair game.”
With that in mind, is there anything from past seasons that weren’t as developed as it could have been?
“Well Justin (Roiland) really wanted to take the show back to a school environment, so we as writers tried to figure out the best way back there. We kind of looked at whether we could do more episodes with just Rick and Morty, or other characters. We looked at if we should use the spaceship in any given situation over the portal gun. In thinking about all this stuff, we took a step back and thought, ‘ok let’s make sure we don’t accidentally change the show.’ Not on the atomic level anyway. Has Doctor Who not used his sonic screwdriver in an episode, for example? The funny thing is that those efforts seem to fail ultimately! It feels like with steeringRick and Mortyin a certain direction, it’s like steering a bobsled.”
Finally, we noted that Harmon had done some “punch up” for Marvel’sDoctor Strangemovie and asked how the experience was.
“I am always eternally happy to help Marvel on anything they want me to. It’s flattering, and it’s fun to get a call from those people. Whenever I work there, it’s like having a conversation over drinks.”
When asked about which Marvel hero he’d love to write that he hasn’t, Harmon enthusiastically stated it was Squirrel Girl (without yet knowing that she was making her TV debut soon as part of theNew Warriorsseries). “A running joke I’ve had forever is writing a Squirrel Girl movie. She’s an amazing character that performs these amazing accomplishments while also being a nonviolent character. I think it would be a movie that wouldn’t panic people.”
