As you may have heard, Sony Pictures has replacedCommunity creator Dan Harmon as showrunner, hiring David Guarascio and Moses Port to take the show’s helm for its fourth season. Harmon’s place in Community‘s future had been uncertain since the show was renewed last week — his public feud with Chevy Chase probably didn’t help – but now it’s pretty much clear: he’s been fired. Earlier today, he responded to the events on his Tumblr, writing:
“Why’d Sony want me gone? I can’t answer that because I’ve been in as much contact with them as you have. They literally haven’t called me since the season four pickup, so their reasons for replacing me are clearly none of my business. Community is their property, I only own ten percent of it, and I kind of don’t want to hear what their complaints are because I’m sure it would hurt my feelings even more now that I’d be listening for free… So do not believe anyone that tells you on Monday that I quit or diminished my role so I could spend more time with my loved ones, or that I negotiated and we couldn’t come to an agreement, etc. It couldn’t be less true because, just to make this clear, literally nobody called me.”
He ends the post by writing, “Mom, Happy Mother’s Day. I got fired. Yes, Mom. AGAIN.” Well, at least he has a sense of humor about it. We’re confident Harmon will go on to create a million more things, and hopefully some of them will be as amazing as Community. Readers, what do you think of this turn of events? Photo courtesy Gage Skidmore.
Is it just us, or have the past few weeks of network television renewals, cancellations, and new series pickups been particularly dramatic? More than any other previous year, the anticipation and anxiety surrounding upfronts has been at fever pitch, with fans of imperiled cult favorites glued to their Twitter feeds for news and a slew of new shows that already have critics and readers talking. The onslaught of announcements has been so intense that even those of us who follow pop culture for a living have had trouble keeping up — so, for the sake of our sanity and yours, we’ve dug through the reports to compile a list of the biggest and most interesting news about the 2012-13 TV season, including trailers for some of the most talked about new series.
The montage that closed last night’s three-part Community season finale, which basically showed the newly christened Greendale Seven becoming better people for having known each other, elicited an audible “awwww” from all assembled in this writer’s living room. But I still wasn’t prepared for the moment when everything faded to white and “#sixseasonsandamovie” appeared on the screen, which I’ll confessed choked me up for a second.
A simple call out on the part of creator Dan Harmon and the team behind Community to its small but obsessive legion of fans, who have adopted the phrase as a rallying cry against its cancellation, this end title card clarified for me why I love this show so much. Although, on the surface, it’s a pop culture-obsessed sitcom with an unprecedentedly wacky and experimental style, it’s also more than that. Along with the strong and sensitive development of Abed’s character that we’ve seen throughout the last several episodes, this season’s finale — which Harmon clearly feared might be the series finale — reaffirmed that Community is first and foremost about the power of friendship to bring people with hugely different backgrounds, interests, and worldviews together, even if some of them are unrepentant assholes. (And if Chevy Chase can’t understand that, he probably should leave the show.)
But now that I’ve got that mushy stuff out of the way, let’s talk about the funniest cultural references on all thee of last night’s episodes. Our top 10 are after the jump.
As avid fans of all things Twin Peaks, we’ve had a close eye on Twin Peaks Props for some time now. The enigmatic “Jerry Horne” (named after the sleazy character played by cult actor favorite David Patrick Kelly) runs the website honoring all the remarkable props featured in the cult television show that helped shape the dark serial’s quirky, kitsch atmosphere. Production designer Richard Hoover crafted the now iconic sets, informed by co-creator David Lynch’s painterly style, emphasizing rich colors and textures. Wood plays an important role in the show, referring back to the foreboding forest surrounding the northwestern town. Most props on the show featured quite prominently, helping to peel back the mundane veneer, hinting at a secret or hidden life observed by the ordinary objects like silent spectators.
Horne is lucky enough to own several of the show’s most famous props. He started collecting in the late 1990s (the show ran from 1990 to 1991), and eventually resurrected a second website — Twin Peaks Archive — where he connected with cast and crew, purchased props, rare photos, and other objects directly from them. Horne’s fascination with the show also extends to an upcoming book project with Twin Peaks Unit Publicist and stills photographer Paula K. Shimatsu-U, featuring all the images she shot on set. The duo is planning the release for the show’s 25th anniversary celebration. What’s the most wanted item from the series? “I think the most coveted prop would be Laura’s red diary from the series. I know who owns the green diary from the pilot. However, the red diary more closely matches the Jennifer Lynch diary that was commercially released. It’s out there somewhere,” Horne shared.
We asked Horne to share ten of his favorite Twin Peaks props with us. Grab your slice of cherry pie and a damn fine cup of coffee, and click through our gallery for a look at Twin Peaks history. We’ve also featured one of the new prop replicas that will be on sale soon. Hint: Harry, Hawk, Andy, and Lucy all owned one.
Are you as excited about tonight’s three-part finale of Community as we are? Do you need something to help tide you over until 8pm finally rolls around? Well, you’re in luck. Thanks to Michael Schmidt at BuzzFeed, we’ve got a supercut of every time that Abed has said the word “cool” (or in most cases “cool cool cool”) on the show so far — which is 102 times, for superfans who are playing along at home. There’s something oddly soothing about the repetition of it, don’t you think?
Here at Flavorpill, we love infographics almost as much as we love Liz Lemon. So, in honor of tonight’s 30 Rock finale and Tina Fey’s 42nd birthday tomorrow, we decided to take a trip through the show’s six seasons and make a special kind of infographic — one that chronicles the tumultuous history of Liz’s locks. How do you like your Liz Lemon? With Princess Leia buns? With old-lady Joker hair? Or with her 1980s Pete Rose cut? Check out all of the above and more after the jump, and hit the comments to let us know the Liz Lemon ‘do of your preference.
There is a special kind of pop-cultural delight in seeing two celebrities we love together. We felt that thrill several times over last night, when The Rachel Maddow Show returned from a commercial break and we found none other than Jane Lynch sitting in Maddow’s chair. Lynch led the show’s entire “Best New Thing in the World,” about increasing Republican support for same-sex marriage, in which she both pulled off an effective MSNBC anchor impression and recalled an alternate-universe episode of Sue’s Corner. But the greatest part of Lynch’s appearance happened after the camera pulled back and Maddow was still there, and the women finished out the show discussing Barack Obama’s support of gay marriage and how the political struggle for LGBT rights has affected their lives as lesbians. Watch the 10-minute clip after the jump.
We were definitely excited when we learned earlier this month that Mick Jagger would be hosting this year’s season finale of Saturday Night Live; as Judy Berman wrote at the time, “even if his acting skills aren’t up to snuff, you’d better believe that a man who’s been fronting one of the biggest rock bands in the world for half a century knows a thing or two about improv.” Now that we’ve had a chance to look at the first promos for the episode, we’re not really sure what to expect. It’s not Mick’s fault really; it just seems like Kristen Wiig doesn’t really know how to interact with him — like he’s her boyfriend’s wacky old dad, who she’s been tasked with trying to entertain for a few minutes. (On a side note: With that hair, he kind of looks like he could be her dad.) While we’ll admit that we found that bit at the :30 mark about sex and drugs pretty funny, we were underwhelmed by the spots as a whole, which is never a good sign. If Lorne Michaels was set on booking a rock icon for hosting duties, why couldn’t he have gone with David Bowie instead? Sigh. Watch and let us know what you think the comments.
With all of the major TV network upfronts happening over the past few days, it’s easy to overlook the news concerning their plucky basic cable brethren. Like say, Adult Swim. The Live Feed reports that among the network’s eight new projects that are currently in development is an animated series that’s based on the Harold & Kumar movies, with both John Cho and Kal Penn on board to voice, and Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, who wrote A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, penning the script.
Also in the works, a pilot from Community creator Dan Harmon for an animated show called Rick & Morty that will follow a “genius inventor grandfather and his less than genius grandson, and the journeys in life they share.” Is it just us, or can you also hear stoners and comedy geeks everywhere wildly rejoicing? Or maybe that’s just what it sounds like when Chevy Chase weeps.
While perusing today’s new DVD releases, your film editor was nearly prompted to a coffee spit take by one particular title: Warner Archive’s release of, and I quote, “Emily’s Reasons Why Not: The Complete Series.” You see, I remember Emily’s, ABC’s well-publicized 2006 Heather Graham sitcom that aired exactly one time before being unceremoniously yanked from the air. “Ha ha,” I thought to myself. “31 bucks is a lot of money to ask for a thirty-minute disc,” and I laughed and laughed. That’s not the whole story, of course; there are actually seven episodes of “the complete series” (though that’s still a pretty hefty price tag); six more where already in the bank when ABC pulled the show due to poor reviews and low ratings. (Funny thing: its 6.2 million viewers would be a pretty comfortable debut in today’s slipping TV environment.) But it was far from the first show to get tossed in the dumpster before it could find an audience. After the jump, we’ve compiled just a few TV series that were put out to pasture notoriously early in their runs.
