Dan Harmon

Dan Harmon
Harmon at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2014.
Born	(1973-01-03) January 3, 1973 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US
Occupation	Writer, producer
Known for	Community Rick and Morty Harmontown Channel 101 Monster House Heat Vision and Jack Acceptable.TV[1]
Spouse(s)	Erin McGathy (m. 2014–2015)

Dan Harmon (born January 3, 1973) is an American writer and producer. Harmon is best known for creating and producing NBC comedy series Community, co-creating Adult Swim animated television series Rick and Morty, and co-founding the alternative television network/website Channel 101. Harmon published You'll Be Perfect When You're Dead in 2013^[2] and is currently working on a second book set for publication in 2016.^[3]

He also hosts a weekly eponymous podcast, Harmontown.

Early life

Harmon was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He graduated from Brown Deer High School in Brown Deer, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, and attended Marquette University. He briefly attended Glendale Community College. He would later use his experiences at the community college to form the basis of the show Community.^[4]

Career

Early career (1996–2008)

Harmon was a member of ComedySportz Milwaukee, alongside Rob Schrab, a member of the sketch troupe The Dead Alewives. They produced an album, "Take Down the Grand Master," in 1996. Harmon frequently appeared at Milwaukee's Safehouse free comedy stage early in his career. A notable routine was a song about masturbation.

Dan Harmon at a panel for Community at PaleyFest 2010.

Harmon co-created the television pilot Heat Vision and Jack (starring Owen Wilson and Jack Black) and several Channel 101 shows, some featuring Jack Black, Drew Carey, and Sarah Silverman. He co-created Comedy Central's The Sarah Silverman Program and served as head writer for several episodes. Harmon portrayed a highly fictionalized version of Ted Templeman on two episodes of the Channel 101 web series Yacht Rock, a satirical history of soft rock, featuring stories about Templeman's collaborations with The Doobie Brothers, Michael McDonald and Van Halen. He was the creator, executive producer, and a featured performer in Acceptable.TV, a Channel 101-based sketch show airing for eight episodes in March 2007 on VH1. He and Rob Schrab co-wrote the screenplay for the Academy Award-nominated film Monster House.^[5] He is credited for writing part of Rob Schrab's comic book series Scud: The Disposable Assassin, as well as the spin-off comic series La Cosa Nostroid.

Community (2009–2012; 2014–2015)

In 2009, Harmon's sitcom Community, inspired by his own community college experiences, was picked up by NBC to be in its fall lineup. Harmon served as executive producer and showrunner for 3 seasons until May 18, 2012, when it was announced that Harmon was being let go from his position on Community as a result of tensions between himself and Sony executives.^[6] On June 1, 2013, Harmon announced that he would be returning to Community, serving as co-showrunner along with Chris McKenna;^[7][8] this was confirmed by Sony Pictures on June 10.^[9] NBC cancelled the show after its fifth season in May 2014,^[10] after which Harmon announced on June 30, 2014 that Yahoo! had renewed the series for a 13-episode sixth season to air online on Yahoo! Screen.^[11]

Harmontown (2011–present)

On May 23, 2011, Harmon began hosting a monthly live comedy show and podcast at Meltdown Comics in Hollywood called Harmontown. After his firing from Community, the show became weekly. The show is co-hosted by Jeff B. Davis. Notably, Harmontown has featured a regular segment where the hosts played an ongoing campaign of pen-and-paper role-playing games, first Dungeons & Dragons, and later Shadowrun, with the help of show Game Master Spencer Crittenden. The segment inspred the Seeso original animated series HarmonQuest. The show has featured guests, such as Kumail Nanjiani, Curtis Armstrong, Bobcat Goldthwait, Mitch Hurwitz, Aubrey Plaza, Eric Idle, Greg Proops, Jason Sudekis, Zoe Lister-Jones, Ryan Stiles, Robin Williams, as well as Harmon's ex-wife, podcaster Erin McGathy.^[12] Harmon and Davis took the show on tour in early 2013, broadcasting from Austin, Nashville, Somerville, Massachusetts, Brooklyn, Rhode Island, and more. The tour became the subject of a documentary produced by director Neil Berkeley that follows Harmon, Davis, McGathy, and Crittenden. The documentary, also called Harmontown, premiered at the Austin Film Festival SXSW on March 8, 2014.^[13][14]

Rick and Morty (2012–present)

Harmon and co-showrunner, Justin Roiland, began developing ideas for an animated show during Harmon's yearlong break from Community.^[15] For its fall 2012 season, Adult Swim ordered a 30-minute animated pilot from Harmon and Roiland. The pilot, Rick and Morty, is about the adventures of a brilliant but mean-spirited inventor and his less-than-genius grandson.^[16] The show premiered on December 2, 2013 and was renewed for a second season.^[17] Harmon voices the recurring character of Bird Person.^[18]

Great Minds with Dan Harmon (2016–present)

Since February 2016, Harmon has starred as a fictional version of himself in Great Minds with Dan Harmon, a time travel comedy series on History.

"Story embryo" technique

Harmon has invented a storytelling framework referred to as the "story embryo".^[19] It is the simplest form of a story. While working on Channel 101, Harmon found that many of the directors he was working with claimed that they were unable to write plots for television shows.^[20] This caused Harmon to distill Joseph Campbell's structure of the Monomyth into a simple eight-step process that would reliably produce coherent stories.

Cameos

Dan Harmon appears in a cameo role in episode two in season four of Arrested Development as the Yurt Clerk and in Funny People as a paparazzo. He also has a guest spot as a voice actor in the Fox animated television series Axe Cop.^[21] His voice also appeared as a disclaimer-style voiceover in the Community finale.

Awards

In July 2009, Harmon was nominated in two Emmy categories for his part in writing the Oscar telecast: Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Special and Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics, the latter of which he was awarded for "Hugh Jackman Opening Number" at the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards.

Personal life

In December 2013, Harmon proposed to his long-time girlfriend Erin McGathy.^[22] The two married in November 2014.^[23] The two announced they were divorcing in October 2015.^[24]

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dan Harmon.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Dan Harmon

• Dan Harmon at the Internet Movie Database
• Dan Harmon's page at Myspace
• Dan Harmon's Tumblr blog
• Dan Harmon on Twitter
  
• Dan Harmon on Instagram
• Dan Harmon Talent Page at Channel101.com
• Harmontown Podcast on iTunes