Tag Archives: Community

TCA 13: NBC’s Bob Greenblatt pats own back for hugely successful fall season

The Television Critics Association is back for its winter tour. It’s the time of year when the major networks and their shows talk about their fall performance and preview what’s to come midseason and beyond. Of the big four networks, NBC was up first today and man-o-man was the Peacock’s chairman of entertainment Bob Greenblatt happy to see a sea of press because this marks the first time in a long time that his network has something positive to really talk about. NBC’s had a great fall as they currently find themselves the #1 network in the adults 18-49 demographic and #2 in total viewers (still trailing CBS). “What a difference a year makes, right?” he exclaimed toward the crowd packed with press and critics. “I’m going to bore you with statistics because I’m not sure when I’m going to have the chance to do this again.” The major stats are as follows: for the first half of the season, NBC is up 24 percent and 19 percent in the 18-49 demo and total viewers, respectively. The net can thank the ultimate Monday pairing of The Voice and Revolution for their recent success, as well as high ratings for Sunday Night Football and their surging sitcom Go On. In 2012 FOX entertainment president Kevin Reilly accused the heads of the other major nets of having their heads up their asses. Greenblatt responded directly today with the most publicist quote to come out of his panel: “I can guarantee you, we don’t have our heads up our asses,” he said.

Greenblatt and NBC entertainment president Jennifer Salke used the rest of their time to discuss specific shows, new ones and old. Jump after the break for the bullet-point breakdown. Continue reading TCA 13: NBC’s Bob Greenblatt pats own back for hugely successful fall season

‘Community’ clip: Joel McHale introduces an upcoming Christmas-themed scene with Dean Pelton

Community star Joel McHale is here to spread holiday cheer with an exclusive look at the upcoming fourth season of his cult comedy. McHale introduces a clip from a future Christmas episode that prominently features the one and only Dean Pelton. He quickly manages to turn his gift giving of adorable little pups into a creepy moment thanks to his ongoing obsession with Jeff Winger.

We are reminded that Community returns to NBC at last on February 7, 2013.

Chevy Chase exits ‘Community’

On Wednesday news broke that Pierce Hawthorne dropped out of Greendale Community College for good. Chevy Chase, who plays the bumbling, bigoted former CEO of a Moist Towelette company, will no longer take part in the NBC sitcom Community effective immediately. The actor and the show “are parting ways by mutual agreement,” according to Deadline. The site also reports that as of Wednesday only one or two episodes of the thirteen that comprise the long-delayed season 4 have yet to be filmed so Chase’s character will in fact appear in most of the upcoming episodes. Additionally, episodes were shot out of order; though Chase won’t appear in some episodes leading up to the season finale, he will (likely) be present in the May capper which has already been shot and wrapped.

If you’ve been following the tumultuous news coming out of Community even before series creator Dan Harmon was ousted this news shouldn’t really come as a total surprise. Prior to Harmon’s exit, there was a very public beef between the showrunner and Chevy Chase involving a nasty voicemail left by Chase. With Harmon out of the picture, just last month Chase went on a tirade in the middle of production vocally sharing his displeasure of the way his character was being portrayed; the N-word was tossed around on a set that includes two African American stars. In between there have been numerous reports of Chase storming off the set, and he has made it known that he’s not a fan of the TV sitcom in general. All in all, Chase’s exit was inevitable.

With the series creator and one of the show’s main stars out of the picture, can Community survive past a fourth season. We’ll see how it performs when it finally returns to NBC’s schedule February 7 at 8PM. Harmon had fun with Pierce Hawthorne and he made a formidable antagonist last season, but perhaps the character has run its course and the show will be better off without a hot-headed presence around. With a strong ensemble cast led by Joel McHale, the prospect of six seasons and a movie still lies ahead methinks.

‘Community’ news flash: Star tweets it returns February 7 at 8PM [Update: NBC confirms]

Just moments ago Community star Yvette Nicole Brown tweeted the show’s new air date.

“Guys, Community officially has an airdate: Thursday, February 7th at 8pm!”

She then took the following string of words to form a sentence right out of our mouths.

“February 7th is October 19th! Who knew?!”

This all sounds very promising, but I won’t jump for joy until the National Broadcasting Company confirms it.

Update: It’s official. Community returns February 7 at 8PM, falling back into its plum Thursday night at 8PM timeslot to kick off the network’s night of comedies. It replaces 30 Rock which will have completed its final 13 episode run. The wait just got even longer, but wouldn’t you rather the show air on Thursdays instead of “graveyard” Fridays? Rewatch the recent Troy & Abed clip to lift your spirits. And then mark your calendars!

TV clip: ‘Community’ reminds us why we miss the show so much

If you thought the ousting of creator Dan Harmon was going to severely affect Community, let this brand spankin’ new clip produced exclusively for the Internetz to quell your fears. The cult comedy was supposed to return to NBC’s schedule today, October 19, but the network recently decided to keep it off the air and on the bench for a while longer. The Peacock even had the chance to replace a recently cancelled show with it, but they passed on the opportunity and instead turned to Whitney. To explain the scheduling mess, we turn to a special segment of “Troy & Abed in the Morning” featuring the titular hosts and the entire cast of Community in full form here.

October 19 isn’t just a date, it’s a state of mind…

NBC delays the return of ‘Community’ & ‘Whitney’

Greendale Community College was supposed to open its doors for a Dan Harmon-less fourth season next Friday, October 19. Today NBC released a statement saying the network is delaying the return of Community and its Friday night companion Whitney.

Given the success we’ve had for the past four weeks – including winning the first week of the season in A18-49 – we’ve decided to continue to concentrate our promotional strength on our new NBC shows that are scheduled Monday through Wednesday and have therefore decided to hold COMMUNITY and WHITNEY from their previously announced premieres of October 19th. Without having to launch these comedies on Friday at this time, we can keep our promotion focused on earlier in the week — plus we will have both comedies in our back pocket if we need to make any schedule changes on those nights.  When we have a better idea of viewing patterns in the next few weeks, we will announce new season premieres of WHITNEY and COMMUNITY.

Let’s extrapolate. First, NBC is prioritizing the promotion of its current fall comedies Go OnThe New NormalAnimal Practice, and Guys with Kids. Second, they are acknowledging the possibility that some of their new comedies (namely Animal Practice and Guys with Kids) may not make it much longer. If one or both of these relatively low rated shows, Community and/or Whitney could ditch the Friday graveyard and call Wednesday night a comfortable home. Time will tell, fellow Human Beings.

[Via Deadline]

‘Community’ creator Dan Harmon opens up about his ousting

Dan Harmon was fired from his show Community this past spring just as the third season of the cult NBC sitcom came to a close. This week he sat down with G4’s Attack of the Show guest host Marc Maron and opened up about his recent ousting. Is he bitter? Maybe a little. But he was actually anticipating the show getting cancelled due to low ratings and so the firing didn’t make him sink into a deep depression after all. Watch the 11-minute interview to hear what Harmon has to say about the situation (his feud with Community star Chevy Chase is not discussed, however) and what he has planned for the future (a multicam comedy, perhaps).

‘Community’ creator Dan Harmon is forced out as showrunner

Sad times for Community fans. Creator/executive producer/writer Dan Harmon will no longer serve as the NBC’s sitcom showrunner when it returns for its shortened fourth season in the fall. David Guarascio and Moses Port (Just Shoot MeAliens in America) have been tapped to take over Harmon’s vacated positon.

So what happened? Recently Harmon was in the news because of a feud between him and Community star Chevy Chase went viral. To make what may be a long story short… It was reported that Chase stormed off the set during the filming of the final shot of the season. In retaliation Harmon shared a private voicemail from Chase at the show’s wrap party and in it Chase said some pretty nasty things about Harmon and Community itself. I won’t go into full detail here, but if you do some light digging you can find the recording and additional detail surrounding the feud floating on the ‘Net. In any case, the public feud concludes with Chase sending Harmon a second lewd voicemail after finding out that Harmon played his previous message at the wrap party, in front of the actor’s wife and children no less. Though he wouldn’t apoligize directly to Chase, Harmon took to his blog to apologize formally the fans. “That was a dumb, unclassy, inconsiderate move on my part. I’m very sorry it’s reflecting poorly on the show,” he posted.

Following the feud and the apology, things settled down as Community returned from its extended hiatus and wrapped up its third season. At the Upfronts NBC entertainment president Bob Greenblatt addressed the future of the show. Would Chase and/or Harmon be forced to quit the show so things can move forward smoothly in season four? Greenblatt said that he expected “Dan’s voice to be a part of this show somehow. I’m just not sure if that means him running it day to day or consulting on it.”

Flashforward to near present day. On May 18, one day after the season three finale, news broke that Harmon will not be returning as Community showrunner. Speculation ensued; did Harmon step down from his post or was he forced to quit. In a blog post he admitted that Sony Pictures Television (the studio that owns the show) kicked him out without even consulting him about 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.”

NBC says that Harmon will remain attached to Community as a “consulting producer” but the showrunner reveals that the network is technically obliged to holding onto him like this and that this new title ultimately still renders him powerless. He writes: “However, if I actually chose to go to the office, I wouldn’t have any power there.  Nobody would have to do anything I said, ever.  I would be “offering” thoughts on other people’s scripts, not allowed to rewrite them, not allowed to ask anyone else to rewrite them, not allowed to say whether a single joke was funny or go near the edit bay, etc.  It’s….not really the way the previous episodes got done.  I was what you might call a….hands on producer.  Are my….periods giving this enough….pointedness?  I’m not saying you can’t make a good version of Community without me, but I am definitely saying that you can’t make my version of it unless I have the option of saying “it has to be like this or I quit” roughly 8 times a day.” Consulting producer means nothing without creative control.

So Harmon was fired and that is that. Also not returning next season to focus on other projects are executive producers Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan and writer/producer Chris McKenna. Will Community be different next year? Almost certainly. Without Harmon’s voice and knowledge of these characters he created the show will feel a tad off; or maybe it won’t, we’ll have to wait and see. However season four (and beyond) turns out, Community fans will always have Harmon’s hard work that makes up seasons 1-4 to look back on. In a way the season three finale felt very much like a series finale, the closing of a chapter with Dan Harmon’s signature scribbled directly on it.

[Via TV Guide]

TV reminder: ‘Community’ returns tonight to NBC! [Update: solid ratings]

Human Beings, rejoice! After an extended and dreadful three month hiatus, Community is back.

The 2+ minute trailer embedded above shouts “One community will rise again and everything we know will Chang.” It also previews what’s in store for the second half of the cult comedy’s third season: so much funny.

Hailed as “the entertainment event of the year” by the deep-voiced trailer narrator, Community makes it big comeback tonight (3/15) at 8PM on NBC. For the sake of all that is good in this world, do tune in, tell your friends, and make an effort to support a season renewal of this smart and refreshingly unique sitcom.

Update: The Community comeback episode was up a solid 47% in the ratings from its last original airing on December 7 in the all-important 18-49 demo (2.2/7); that’s a season high. 4.9 million total viewers were accounted for, and that’s up 36% from the last episode. A couple of accolades have been awarded to last night’s airing: it’s been crowned the #1 program in adults 18-34 and men 18-34 during its 8-8:30PM timeslot among the other big networks, beating out FOX’s juggernaut American Idol. Keep in mind, however, that all this went down when CBS aired March Madness in place of their own ratings monster The Big Bang Theory. Still, if Community stabilizes around these numbers and doesn’t drop too far from here a season renewal might be in the comedy’s future.

NBC announces ‘Community’ comeback: March 15 is the big day

Long overdue, the Peacock finally blinked its eyes and realized it had a decision to make. Fellow Human Beings, listen up: Community will return to NBC’s Thursday night comedy lineup on March 15 at 8PM! The benched cult show from Dan Harmon ready to make its hotly anticipated comeback. The remaining twelve episodes from season three begin airing just three weeks from today! Now here’s what happens to the Thursday lineup with Community in the mix. It will return to its 8PM timeslot, bumping 30 Rock to 8:30PM, The Office to 9PM, and Up All Night to 9:30PM, taking Parks and Rec out of the equation for the time being. Parks will rest on the bench until April 19, the week after Up All Night ends its 24-episode first season run.

In addition to announcing the return of the wildly entertaining, ferociously smart and witty Community, NBC also let slip the premiere dates of three upcoming comedies BentBest Friends Forever and the unscripted program Betty White’s Off Their Rockers. Bent, starring Amanda Peet, David Walton, and Jeffrey Tambor, premieres Wednesday March 21 at 9PM. The network will air back-to-back episodes over the course of three weeks. When Whitney and Are You There, Chelsea wrap their seasons, BFF and Betty White’s reality series will start Wednesday April 4 and they will be paired at 8PM and 9PM, respectively.

NBC prez Bob Greenblatt on all this: “We are happy to have an unprecedented amount of original content on NBC this spring. Bent, Best Friends Forever and Betty White’s Off Their Rockers are welcome additions to the Wednesday schedule, and we know that the loyal fans of Community will be pleased with its return to its home on Thursdays at 8PM.”

[Via Deadline]

2012 Winter TCAs: NBC’s Bob Greenblatt on ‘really bad fall’, hope for success with ‘Smash’, the return of ‘Community’

Last week at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour NBC was the first big network to publicly shed light on its fall TV season performance and hint at where they’re headed in 2012. NBC entertainment president Bob Greenblatt didn’t waste anyone’s time with these opening words. “We had a really bad fall, worse than I’d hoped for but about as I expected,” he said. “People say the only way to go is up which I believe is true, but there is a long way to get there.” He continued, “We had few strong lead-ins — our most recent scripted hit is six years old [30 Rock]. Some of our older hits lost cast members [Law & Order: SVU and The Office].” He also blames the network’s overall ratings decline on “the fact that we have few strong lead-ins.” He added, “There was no great revelation or shocking epiphany about fall expect it just [reinforced] how hard it is to break through.” Later he spun things positively acknowledging the recent NBCUniversal/Comcast merger. “But the good news is we now have new owners, they’re investing in our business, not only with financial resources, but with their patience.”

NBC’s major disappoints this fall were Prime Suspect, The Playboy Club, and the Hank Azaria comedy Free Agents. Greenblatt made sure to share his thoughts on each failed project. On Prime Suspect: “[It] was probably the biggest disappointment. Was it too cable, was [Maria Bello’s character] too abrasive? Maybe I should say it was the hat and move on…the audience wanted to be entertained with comedy and fairytales [this fall], and there wasn’t appetite in the country for a hard-hitting cop show.” On The Playboy Club: ” “Was Playboy Club too dark? I don’t know. I think it was a just a rejected concept…I know everybody thinks we sat in a room and said, ‘Oh, we have a show like Mad Men, let’s put that on.’ We thought going into the period would interest people, but I don’t think people were that fascinated by that milieu and place.” And finally on Free Agents:  “I’ll go on record stating I liked it. Am I surprised that it went down? I’m really not surprised about anything going down today.” Though comedies Whitney and Up All Night haven’t become ratings hits yet, Greenblatt is confident that in time they will find bigger audiences.

The NBC chairmen went on to share his excitement about upcoming drama Smash, and at the same time he made sure to keep expectations at a realistic level. “I think that Smash is going to be very important to us,” said Greenblatt. “I don’t believe it’s a make or break show for us. I think we’re all proud of it and we’re excited to see what it can do. If I had a dime for every time someone said to me, ‘You just need one hit…’ I think in this day and age you need four or five shows to start to turn things around. Smash could be one of those. If it isn’t, it’s not like we’re going to go into receivership. But we do think it’s special and it can break through the clutter.” He noted that the musical will have a ratings advantage since it will be attached to one of the network’s “few and far between” lead-ins in The Voice.

He also discussed the future of cult-favorite Community. “When I announced our midseason changes last fall and took Community off the schedule, I failed to explicitly say that it would be back,” he said. “I want to expel any notion that it is just disappearing off the schedule.” It has been confirmed that season 3 will resume this spring. He continued, “Community was moved to 8PM a couple years ago and that’s an incredibly competitive time slot now on Thursday and I’m really curious to see what something else [30 Rock] would do there. I don’t know if it makes sense to ask it to start off the night again. We’ve tried to migrate some comedies to Wednesday this year. It’s a matter of looking at what happens with the six comedies we’ve got at midseason, to figure out where Community makes the most sense.” And when can viewers expect to hear news of possible renewal? “We’re just going to look at the success of what pilots yield, what the scheduling needs are and make that decision closer to the upfront [in May],” Greenblatt explained.

Greenblatt went on to share his thoughts about other NBC programming. Here are some choice quotes. On Howard Stern joining America’s Got Talent: “I have headaches about a lot of other things but that’s not one of them. I think he’s going to be a great judge and take it seriously. I don’t think his plan is to usurp the show and make it the Howard Stern Circus.” On the status of Fear Factor: “People like to see the snake cage and the swallowing of the bees. What can I say? We’re always happy to have those ratings. It’s [a show] that will probably come and go [on the schedule] as needed.”

The former head of programming at Showtime ended the panel like this. “The beauty of cable is the ratings for a program really don’t correlate to the bottom line. At Showtime, Prime Suspect would have been picked up in the third episode, it would have been declared a hit and it would have been in production for four or five years.” With broadcast TV, “You can’t be as cavalier about, ‘Oh we love the show. We’re just going to keep it on as long as we want.’ That’s the big dilemma that I’m in.” He concluded, “We have to figure out how to cease up on that and not end up in a narrow place.”

Can new midseason shows like Smash, Awake, The Firm, and Are You There, Chelsea? help lift the Peacock out of the ratings rubble and into a better place? Like many things in life, time will tell.

[Via Deadline; THR; EW; TVLine]

DJ Steve Porter remixes ‘Community’ Greendale gang

As you sit there and shake in anticipation for the season 3 premiere of Community coming later this month, I present this phenomenal video to you. DJ Steve Porter (the same guy that Nickelodeon hired to dream up The ’90s Are All That jingle) put together this Community themed remix that incorporates a ton of great season 2 moments. The upbeat dance track was first unveiled at Comic Con earlier this summer, and now it’s on the ‘Net for all to see! I got two words for you: POP POP!

Community returns September 22 on NBC.

[Via EW-InsideTV]