Share. Community's creator on his approach to the show now that it has a new home. Community's creator on his approach to the show now that it has a new home.

Community can’t be stopped! Having survived multiple near-cancellations, the show was actually cancelled by NBC this year – only to then be resurrected by Yahoo, in a surprise move.

With Season 6 on the way (production begins next week!), I spoke to the show’s creator, Dan Harmon, about his approach given this new home for the show, his working relationship with frequent Community directors the Russo Bros (who will direct the season premiere, before continuing their big Marvel duties with Captain America: Civil War) and more.

I should note this interview was done before Yvette Nicole Brown revealed she wouldn’t be back for Season 6 and new cast members Paget Brewster and Keith David were announced, hence those topics not being discussed.

IGN: The Russo brothers have had a pretty busy year, to say the least, but they're still coming back to direct your season premiere. In fact, I was surprised at the couple episodes they directed last season, because I’d think, "Aren't they editing Captain America 2 right now?"

Dan Harmon: Yeah, I feel like there might be a little bit on both sides, a nostalgic, kind of bittersweet desire to keep going back to the relationship that never found its footing from the beginning. We were always very effective collaborators, but there was never that moment where we all put down our weapons. There was always a little stone ax within reach. [Laughs] Because they were directors and I'm a writer. I'm never going to fully trust people whose typewriters are cameras. It doesn't make any sense to me. But at the same time, you have to look at the whole body of work. You look at Season 1, I look back on it with a little bit of regret about how I may have intonated to them on several occasions like, "This is my show!" I was right. I should have said that in the context, but also, at the same time, after all the show's been through and seeing what's really important to people -- which is whether the episodes are good -- I just wish I had added back then, "By the way, you guys are really good at what you do! This is just a f**king hard show," you know, something. I haven't spoken to them about it on an emotional level, but it always feels like on both sides we're like -- I keep asking if they'll come back and do an episode, and they keep saying, "Yes," so it's almost like we're both going, "You know, we're cool now, right? We probably should have never questioned each other."

Exit Theatre Mode

IGN: You just did a season that was in many ways a transition season, storywise, so how do you approach Season 6? While we're all going to be aware, "Oh, it's moving from NBC to Yahoo," are you trying to keep that to the side when you're writing scripts and just be like, "This is the new season of Community"?

Harmon: Yeah, we're not brainstorming a lot of jokes that are going to be like, "Oh, this will be hilarious because it'll be a metaphor for Yahoo taking over Greendale," or whatever. We're not above going down that road sometimes. If we come with an idea that really resonates with us, then we end up realizing that it resonates with us because we sort of are Greendale, and we are in a new situation. It's just as much cause for celebration as it is for concern to somebody who is a frantic, rabid fan. "What does this mean?" So maybe that gets into our stories. The really odd thing is that it seems like -- I don't want people to overreact to this statement; it's not totally, technically true -- but we're talking a lot about different ideas that have to do with Greendale achieving a new level of technology. It just sort of seems to keep coming up, like the jokes turn into virtual reality jokes. It's almost like, "Oh yeah, we're feeling that strange new world," and we're wondering if it's going to be good or bad, which in the '80s, that was the peak of the War Games myth that computers are magical; you could write stories about how they could maybe open your kitchen window if they hacked into them or something. We didn't understand; we just knew boxes that people could type on and start a nuclear war. So I think that's maybe how we kind of feel about Yahoo. "It's so powerful and purple. What does this mean?"

IGN: [Laughs] And the go-to question, whenever there's a move like this to a new format, is, content-wise, what happens? Are there less restrictions, and would you want to use them or not -- because the concern may be Community's Community, and suddenly it'd be strange if it was too different?

Harmon: It is as you probably imagine. The answer is there are less restrictions. In point of fact, they said to me yesterday -- I was surprised to actually hear this; I never bothered to ask because I'd kind of made up my mind about this -- but it turns out I think they have a soft-R S&P [standards and practices] standard, and that means, I guess, any episode could come into the cold open and go, "Holy s**t, you guys! There's a big pile of s**t out in the hallway! Look at this s**t!"

It's interesting to think about that, but I consider it my job to bring the show that we already know to this new medium, and then having accomplished that, take advantage of the new medium to bring the show to more people and make them happier than they've ever been made. But all of that is moot if the show doesn't feel like itself. It would be like, "Oh, congratulations on your victory with this new version of the show where people say 's**t,' smoke cigarettes and say the White House should be burnt down." [Laughs] I could write a new show about that.

Exit Theatre Mode

But I think part of Community's format is that it's an NBC show. Its colleagues were 30 Rock and Parks and Rec, and I strove to work at their level -- The Office was in full swing at that time. I was surrounded by really classy, sophisticated colleagues who all had head-starts on making what I consider to be very modern homages to a classic era of television. So that's in Community's DNA. The way a Viking kid can't get over his love of the sea, whether you raised him in a desert or not, Community wants to be some beautiful blend of 30 Rock and The Office, a little bit of Parks and Rec. It lives in a certain time. It's a certain kind of creature, and I don't want it to not feel like that, even though it's on Yahoo. So it's still going to be 21 minutes long. It's going to be three acts. I don't think anyone's going to rip their shirt open -- no more than usual.

IGN: No more than Jeff is known for doing.

Harmon: Yeah, and 20 percent of Community's business is run by Alison Brie GIFs, so there'll be the usual amount of, "Oh! The elevator's working. Oh! The elevator's stopped working. Oh! It's working and not working in rapid succession. But I'm wearing a tube top!" That's the B story; I don't know what to tell you.

IGN: At this point, is there a part of you that's like, "I can't believe we're working on Community: Season 6 now"? Or is it "Of course we're working on Community: Season 6 now"?

Harmon: [Laughs] Yeah, that's the most fascinating thing. It's like, which is more surprising now? When you're on your sixth season of a marked-for-death show -- and its third resurrection -- yeah, at what point do you actually acknowledge that it would be weirder for this thing to go? I thought we were dead. That's what cancelation usually means. Even in the world that we live in, I really thought that was official. They packed up the sets, everyone went and got other jobs -- the show didn't exist anymore. They were talking to people about another version of it, and that's just what Sony does. They never say die. But I was like, "This is over." So I went from hating that it was possibly coming back to, "Holy s**t, we've got to do this" in about a 40-minute phone conversation with Kathy Savitt from Yahoo. I knew the kind of conversation I was having with her. It occurred to me while I was talking to her that, number one, who would have predicted that AMC would have had the best television show in 15 years three years ago? Number two, I haven't experienced yet, in the history of this show, it being broadcast by people who not only aren't figuring out how to get rid of it, but actually bought it the way it was. I was like, "Man, I can't leave before I find out what that's like." I think a lot of it is going to be about growing up. Now even more than ever, it's not even about being left alone. Now we're being supported. Now they're like, "How can we help?" It's hard to know what to tell them. "Just don't hit us with a sock full of pennies." "What? Who would do that?" And then we just start crying.

Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @EricIGN, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at Facebook.com/TheEricGoldman.