Creator / Dan Harmon

Check this out!^{note Storytelling insights from Dan.}

"I'm his biggest fan, and I fired him."

— Sarah Silverman

Daniel James Harmon (born January 3, 1973) is the creator of Channel 101, The Sarah Silverman Program, Community, Rick and Morty, Krapopolis, HarmonQuest, Great Minds with Dan Harmon and Heat Vision and Jack. Frequent collaborator of Rob Schrab and master of creating Cult Classics. Showrunner on Community for seasons 1-3 and 5-6 (he was fired before season four). Executive producer of Little Demon. Currently the creator / executive producer of Krapopolis and Strange Planet (2023).

Interviews with the cast of Community suggest he reads a lot of websites regarding his show. This, combined with the nature of Abed, suggests he's One of Us. He is a confirmed reader of TV Tropes. Also a confirmed redditor with three amazing IamA AMAs. He also hosts the weekly podcast Harmontown with Jeff Davis.

In 2024, it was announced that Harmon would be re-writing the script for a live-action film adaptation of One-Punch Man with fellow Rick and Morty writer Heather Anne Campbell.

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Tropes pertaining to Dan Harmon:

• Anti-Nihilist: Both Community and Rick and Morty are about how the meaninglessness of existence makes family and friends really important as they're our only way of coping in a hostile world.
  Morty: Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs everywhere. Everyone's going to die. Come watch TV?
• Black Comedy Rape: It shows up a lot in Community's Hilarious Outtakes (along with Don Glover, Joel Mc Hale and Allison Brie who also often joke or playact the subject), but in his shows it's rarely treated with anything but dead seriousness.
• Central Theme: How the meaninglessness of our life makes our loved ones all the more important as they are our only way of coping in a hostile world.
• Creator Thumbprint:
  • His works often feature positive portrayals of characters who have symptoms of autism-spectrum disorders (Abed in Community is almost certainly the most obvious example; Rick and Morty both have elements of this as well). In at least one interview, he has mentioned possibly being on the spectrum himself and spoken about how he feels that much of what is written off as being a "disorder" is actually a matter of perceiving the world and behaving differently from other humans, and that the fear of being alone is common to all of humanity. He's also spoken about how he feels the autism spectrum needs more positive representation in media, and noted how closely the community tended to identify with these characters and that he didn't want to let them down.
  • Incest has come up way too many times to be a co-incidence. Arguably reaches it's zenith when an episode of Rick and Morty has a Giant Incest Baby as a major element of TWO episodes.
  • Redheaded women seem to be his cup of tea.
  • His works will often subvert and make fun of meaningful story and sitcom conventions.
• Deconstructive Parody: Part of his Signature Style.
• Deconstructor Fleet: His projects will often deconstruct as many storytelling tropes as possible. To be more specific:
  • Community deconstructs many classic sitcom plots, typical story conventions, and as many genres as possible.
  • Rick and Morty deconstructs Western Animation Fantastic Comedy shows. It also mixes it with deconstructions of various 80s cult movies and common tropes related to science-fiction such as the philosophy of nihilism and the Mad Scientist archetype.
  • Krapopolis is one to family sitcoms and every aspect of Classical Mythology.
• Decon-Recon Switch: His projects will often tend to subvert and deconstruct a lot of plot conventions usually found in sitcoms or classic stories while also following them.
• Executive Meddling: On the The Sarah Silverman Program his Bunny-Ears Lawyer nature was what got him kicked off alongside his personality making him hard to work with. On Community this was what was publicly stated to be the reason for his firing after Season 3, but was later revealed to have actually been Harmon sexually harassing a member of the writing staff^note He had already apologized for this well before it came to light. Thankfully, Harmon has been doing better since he made his public apology and hasn't been causing nearly as many problems on set as he used to.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: In a Dan Harmon show, a comedic sociopath that is part of the main cast is expected. Community has Jeff Winger, Rick and Morty has Rick Sanchez, and Krapopolis has Deliria, (who is known as the goddess of self-destruction and questionable choices).
• Old Shame: He admitted that he was unimpressed with his work on Monster House. Outside of his work, he has also admitted that, during his time on Community where he was sexually harassing an employee and lying to his girlfriend, he said he deserved to be fired. His public apology for that has been lauded as "a master class in how to apologize". Harmon has since gotten a lot better over the years and has not been fired from any of his shows since.
• The Perfectionist: Harmon tends to be a guy who is very hard on himself and he even admitted he had this problem for years. It was likely at his worst during production of Rick and Morty season 3. This seems to have died down in recent years and he is less likely to put pressure on himself and his writing.
• Rousseau Was Right: In Community and even surprisingly Rick and Morty. Many characters struggle to truly learn lessons and develop as people. However, we learn why they are that way and can therefore sympathize with them, and they do learn and grow, though it's difficult for them.
• Signature Style: His shows will often take simple and familiar concepts and turn them into deconstructive parodies of various story conventions and genres. This will help explore the messed up and relatable turmoil of their seemingly cliched character archetypes. Characters don't particularly have any meaningful character development but we do see more of what makes them who they are and with repeated effort do slowly but surely get better over time. There also tends to be a lot of incest, redheads, and positive portrayals of people on the autistic spectrum in his works.
• Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: This is essentially the arc of more than one of his protagonists. Both Jeff Winger and Rick Sanchez learn that their cynical and self-serving outlook on life have ultimately left them lonely, miserable, delusioned, riddled with psychological issues, and toxic towards those they care about.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Played with. His stories are deconstructive parodies of meaningful story conventions with a dose of harsh realities and a lack of genuine character development. Despite this, they remain fairly insightful even when in a world filled to the brim with bleakness. That lack of genuine development is relative, however, as his shows, alongside others like Bojack Horseman show a more realistic kind of development that takes years of hard work and often involves failure and backsliding.
  • Rick and Morty is widely considered one of the most nihilistic cartoons on television. However, the series likes to heavily subvert its overly idealistic and cynical moments. Many episodes still present insightful ideas on being happy in life. There are also story elements that get exposed that show that this nihilism is at least partially caused by the collective actions of the Ricks.
  • Strange Planet (2023) on the other hand removes any sort of cynicism that can be found in his other works and provides a gentle and insightful take on the philosophies found in human life.