Let’s Participate This Thing!
Ok, look guys. I’ve been hemming and hawing over this damned CommuniCon piece for like half a week. I was gonna be all journalistic about this and try to cover everything that happened, but I’m Harmonish and rambly and it’s not gonna work. So, highlights after the jump.
Firstly, have you guys PLAYED Journey To The Center of Hawkthorne? Cause if not, get thee to the sub-reddit and download it. Like, now. A collective of pop-culture nerds in love with this one thing more than any other thing all giving input makes for an INTENSELY accurate version of the game.
Megan Ganz is a demi-goddess. No surprises there. (If you’re not in love with Megan, you don’t know who Megan is.)
Every actor playing a side character gives reason to believe that they didn’t need the writers’ room putting words in their mouths.
Dan Harmon and a Microphone. I repeat. Dan Harmon and a Microphone. If you’ve never been lucky enough to see him live, it’s an almost transcendent experience. Not unlike Nick Offerman’s “stand up” (he really IS Ron Swanson), Dan simply talks about anything and everything, giving advice to live by in an inspirational, occasionally light-hearted, mostly fucked up and always funny way. He IS a genius and I WILL die protecting his vision. The sweetest curmudgeon this side of Bill Murray. He smells like vodka and rainbows, in case you were curious.
A small version of the #sixseasonsandamovie art show afforded me a rendering of the Greendale 7 in their 8-bit form and a greeting card with a phaser and the caption, “Set phasers to LOVE ME!”. I’m pretty sure my own personal geek imploded on itself.
Lastly, and this is where the true heart of the show came into serious play, we had fan testimonials. Every person who got up to talk discussed some major event in their life over the last couple of years (moving cross-country, horrendous breakups, loss of family members, in one case, a brain tumor) and how the show was the one thing that saved them. How it pulled them back from the brink. How it really is, for all of us obsessives, a cheap and in most cases, more effective form of therapy. There was sobbing. There was hugging. There may have been someone with a violin and everyone singing multiple Somewhere Out There run-throughs. Look, I’m not gonna lie. Shit got pretty heavy. But what’s a good episode of Community that doesn’t know that feel, bro?
I’ll leave you with one of the first things Harmon said…”This was completely fan organized, sold out almost instantly and still had a waitlist a mile long. If this is, and I hope so, the first of MANY, I promise. I will come to every single one. Hell, I got nothin’ else going on. If 8 of you are having a Troy costume contest in your living room, I’ll come and judge it. You know how to find me on twitter.” So guys…Wanna have a Troy costume contest?