WTF?!?!!? This is seriously the most effed up thing I have heard in a long time. While I’m glad Community is coming back for another season, this is ridiculous and shortsighted. Dan Harmon IS Community as far as I’m concerned. While I love the actors and the other writers, Dan Harmon was the heart of the show. And unlike many other creative types in tinseltown, Harmon placed a premium on interacting with fans and providing us with an insider view of what was going on with the show.

So. . . major shocker as Dan Harmon announced on his tumblr that he was being fired from the show. Lots of Hollywood BS behind this, as he was unceremoniously dumped via press release on 7:30 on a Friday night — not even a f@#$ing phone call to let him know what happened or why.

Here’s how he put it.

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.

That is just so scummy. Not even a phone call? Gaaaaaagh. . . .

There has been some speculation that this had to do with the very public feud between Harmon and Chevy Chase.  Personally I’d hoped that they just killed off the character of Pierce, since he has been pretty much streets behind ever since Season 1. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Feel free to jump to that conclusion if you want to, but there’s no evidence for it. Yet.

Let me just pontificate on this for a moment: Up yours, Sony Pictures and NBC. How dare you? I mean, how dare you?!?!? You know they felt some amount of shame about what they were doing because of how they announced it. Not even calling the guy to give him a heads up, no press conference, just a pro forma press release at 7:30 pm Pacific Time on a Friday– or, as PR professionals call it– “take out the trash time.” If you have horrible news you wait until Friday night to release it because most reporters are done for the week. And here’s the secret– the Sunday paper is generally set by late Thursday, early Friday, especially when you’re talking about the tv, movies, and entertainment sections. Then, when everyone comes back in to work on Monday, the conventional wisdom is everyone will just say, “Meh, it’s old news now. All the blogs have covered it. Why would we waste space on something we got scooped on?” Dirty, dirty, dirty tricks. And it’s exactly what people do when they have bad news or something they’re going to get excoriated over.

What I think this really signals, though, is the end of Community. Now, now, hear me out– I know #sixseasonsandamovie is the dream, but, realistically, let’s remember that Jeff Winger came in to Greendale trying to find the quickest path to graduation so he could go back to hotshot lawyering. And someone as focused as Annie there’s no way she doesn’t also find a way to graduate in 4 years. I know recent events have stymied these dreams, but assuming the show will continue to revolve around them at Greendale, this 4th season would be their senior year. Add that to the fact that the show is moving to Friday in the dreaded death slot, and I think maybe it gets wrapped up. Perhaps, indeed, the fact that the last thing we saw in the season finale was the #sixseasonsandamovie – maybe that pissed some people off at Sony/NBC who just want to churn out enough episodes to throw this into syndication and then dump it.

Pierce/NBC/Sony: Want my advice? Pork her and move on. We did it all the time in my day.
Jeff/fans/Dan Harmon: Yeah, well you also put hydrogen in blimps, and that was bad.

Upset as I am about this? Leave some words of love for Dan Harmon in the comments section.