Dan Harmon apologizes for dissing ‘Community’ season 4

The ink is barely dry on Dan Harmon’s agreement to return to “Community,” the NBC comedy series he created and then was fired from, but already the outspoken writer is causing trouble.

The latest dust-up came from comments Harmon made Sunday during the taping of his “Harmontown” podcast, in which he expressed his intense dislike of the work done on the show during its fourth season, the season after he was replaced by showrunners David Guarascio and Moses Port.

“It is very much like an impression, and an unflattering one,” he said of the 13-episode season. “They ... replaced us with two guys that didn’t know what they were getting into.... And I think they tried their best ... and that was their most admirable impulse, to not let these people down.”

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Harmon’s comments spread like wildfire through the online community that forms the heart of “Community’s” rabid cult following, prompting Harmon to write an extended apology on his Tumblr, “Dan Harmon Poops.” (That’s what it’s called).

“I’m apoloblogging in an effort to counteract pain I caused other people,” he wrote, then went on to describe how he discovered how his words had hit the mainstream media. “I ... checked my tweets, discovered my name in several headlines next to several bad words, and, as usual, it was then that I started to consider how my words might affect other people if viewed as headlines.”

Harmon then goes on to apologize to everyone whom he might have offended, including the “Community” fan base (“What I said was disrespectful to your love for this show”), the cast and crew (“It was dishonest to imply that something you worked on was as hard to watch as my family being assaulted”) and finally the writers of season four (“I liked the ‘Hogan’s Villains’ line”).

This isn’t the first time Harmon has had to issue a lengthy mea culpa to the fans of “Community” for his bad behavior. He also apologized for the Chevy Chase incident, when he played angry voicemails from the star (who has since left the series) for his “Harmontown” audience.

With work just beginning on the show’s fifth season, it’s reasonable to assume that there will be more choice words from Harmon before the whole thing is finished.

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