Dan Harmon
Harmon in 2016
Born	Daniel James Harmon (1973-01-03)January 3, 1973 (age 52) Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
Alma mater	Glendale Community College
Occupations	Writer producer actor
Years active	1996–present
Spouse	Erin McGathy ​ ​ (m. 2014; div. 2015)​
Partner(s)	Cody Heller (2016–present; engaged)

Daniel James Harmon (born January 3, 1973) is an American television writer, producer, animator, and actor.^[1] He is best known as the creator and producer of theNBC sitcomCommunity (2009–2015), creator and host of the comedy podcastHarmontown (2012–2019), creator of theAdult Swim animated sitcomRick and Morty (2013–present) and itssubsequent franchise along withJustin Roiland where he voices Birdperson, co-founder of the alternative television network and websiteChannel 101 along withRob Schrab, and creator ofFox animated sitcomKrapopolis (2023–present).

Daniel James Harmon^[2] was born inMilwaukee, Wisconsin, on January 3, 1973. He graduated fromBrown Deer High School inBrown Deer, Wisconsin, and attendedMarquette University. He briefly attendedGlendale Community College inGlendale, California, an experience which would later form the basis of his sitcomCommunity.^[3]

Harmon was a member ofComedySportz in Milwaukee, alongsideRob Schrab, a member of the sketch troupe TheDead Alewives. They produced an album,Take Down the Grand Master, in 1996. Harmon frequently appeared at Milwaukee's Safehouse free comedy stage early in his career. A notable routine was a song about masturbation.

Harmon co-created the television pilotHeat Vision and Jack (starringOwen Wilson andJack Black) and several Channel 101 shows, some featuring Black,Drew Carey, andSarah Silverman. He co-createdComedy Central'sThe Sarah Silverman Program and served as head writer for several episodes.

Harmon portrayed a highly fictionalized version ofTed Templeman on two episodes of the Channel 101 web seriesYacht Rock, a satirical history ofsoft rock, featuring stories about Templeman's collaborations withThe Doobie Brothers,Michael McDonald andVan Halen. He was the creator, executive producer, and a featured performer inAcceptable.TV, a Channel 101-based sketch show airing for eight episodes in March 2007 onVH1. He and Rob Schrab co-wrote the screenplay for theAcademy Award-nominated filmMonster House. He is credited with writing part of Rob Schrab's comic book seriesScud: The Disposable Assassin, as well as the spin-off comic seriesLa Cosa Nostroid.

In 2009, Harmon's sitcomCommunity, inspired by his own community college experiences, was picked up byNBC to be in its fall lineup. Harmon served as executive producer andshowrunner for 3 seasons until May 18, 2012, when it was announced that Harmon was being terminated from his position onCommunity as a result of creative conflicts between himself and Sony executives.^[4] On June 1, 2013, Harmon announced that he would be returning toCommunity, serving as co-showrunner along withChris McKenna;^[5][6] this was confirmed bySony Pictures on June 10.^[7] NBC cancelled the show after its fifth season in May 2014,^[8] after which Harmon announced on June 30, 2014, thatYahoo! had renewed the series for a 13-episode sixth season to air online onYahoo! Screen.^[9] In a 2024 interview, returning star Yvette Nicole Brown confirmed thatCommunity movie's script is ready, and the movie is in the works.^[10]

On May 23, 2011, Harmon began hosting a monthly live comedy show and podcast at Meltdown Comics inHollywood calledHarmontown. After his firing fromCommunity, the show became weekly. The show is co-hosted byJeff B. Davis.Harmontown has included a regular segment where the hosts played an ongoing campaign ofpen-and-paper role-playing games, firstDungeons & Dragons, and laterShadowrun, with the help of showGame MasterSpencer Crittenden. The segment inspired theSeeso original animated seriesHarmonQuest. The show has included multiple celebrity guests. Harmon and Davis took the show on tour in early 2013, which was the subject of a documentary. The documentary, also calledHarmontown, was produced by director Neil Berkeley that follows Harmon, Davis, McGathy, and Crittenden. It premiered at the Austin Film FestivalSXSW on March 8, 2014.^[11][12] On September 10, 2019, the HarmontownTwitter account announced that the podcast would be coming to an end,^[13] and its final episode was published on December 5, 2019.^[14]

During the first season ofCommunity, Harmon also co-founded Starburns Industries with several people includingDino Stamatopoulos, who played a character calledStar-Burns onCommunity. In its first year, the company produced astop-motion episode ofCommunity which garnered the company anEmmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Animation. Starburns Industries was then involved in the creation ofRick and Morty and animated filmsAnomalisa andBubbles. It has also produced season 2 ofMary Shelley's Frankenhole and the specialBeforel Orel forAdult Swim,HarmonQuest forSeeso andVRV andAnimals forHBO.^[15]

In 2013, Harmon published the bookYou'll Be Perfect When You're Dead.^[16]

Harmon left the company in 2020.^[17] The studio's output declined steadily after the departure, with their only released projects after 2020 beingThe Freak Brothers andSlippin' Jimmy.

Harmon and co-showrunnerJustin Roiland began developing ideas for an animated show during Harmon's yearlong break fromCommunity.^[18] For its fall 2012 season,Adult Swim ordered a 30-minute animated pilot from Harmon and Roiland. The pilot,Rick and Morty, is about the adventures of a brilliant but mean-spirited inventor and his less-than-genius grandson.^[19] The show premiered on December 2, 2013, and was renewed for second and third seasons.^[20] In May 2018,Rick and Morty was renewed for a further 70 episodes after Harmon and Roiland came to an agreement with Adult Swim.^[21] The series' fourth season concluded in May 2020. Harmon voiced the recurring character of Bird Person. In January 2023, Harmon became the sole showrunner after Roiland was dismissed from the series amidst domestic assault charges.^[22][23]

It was announced through the online siteThe A.V. Club in July 2017 that Harmon andEvan Katz would adaptKurt Vonnegut's 1959 novelThe Sirens of Titan into a television series.^[24] As of October 2021, no more details have been released.

In June 2020, it was announced thatFox greenlit an animated comedy series from Harmon. The series was to be set inAncient Greece and is a co-production betweenFox Entertainment andBento Box Entertainment. On May 17, 2021, it was announced that the series would be titledKrapopolis.^[25] The series premiered on September 24, 2023 and concluded on May 19, 2024.^[26] In July 2024, Fox renewed the series for a fourth season.^[27] In May 2025, the series was renewed for a fifth season, ahead of the season 2 finale and the season 3 premiere.^[28] The third season is set to premiere on September 28, 2025.^[29]

Harmon adapted thehero's journey, a well-known storytelling framework, for use in television; he calls this technique the "story circle".^[30] He began developing the technique while stuck on a screenplay in the late 1990s, and wanted to codify the storytelling process to unveil the "structure" that powers movies and TV shows. He said, "I was thinking, there must be some symmetry to this. Some simplicity."^[30] While working onChannel 101, he found that many of the directors he was working with claimed that they were unable to write plots for television shows.^[31] This prompted him to simplifyJoseph Campbell's structure of the hero's journey into a circular eight-step process that would reliably produce coherent stories.

The story circle can supposedly be applied to all stories. Harmon uses it whenever he is writing a new story, saying, "I can't not see that circle. It's tattooed on my brain."^[30] The circle is divided into eight segments, each representing a stage of the plot: a character is introduced, wants something, enters a new environment, adapts to that environment, achieves their goal, encounters problems as a result of this, leaves that world, and is changed as a result. He writes the steps as follows:

1. A character is in a zone of comfort or familiarity.
2. They desire something.
3. They enter an unfamiliar situation.
4. They adapt to that situation.
5. They get that which they wanted.
6. They pay a heavy price for it.
7. They return to their familiar situation.
8. They have changed as a result of the journey.

Campbell's structure of the hero's journey is the main influence in Harmon's technique. In a blog post detailing the second sector of the circle, Harmon explained, "The point of this part of the circle is, our protagonist has been thrown into the water and now it's sink or swim. InHero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell actually evokes the image of a digestive tract, breaking the hero down, divesting him of neuroses, stripping him of fear and desire. There's no room for bullshit in the unconscious basement. Asthma inhalers, eyeglasses, credit cards, fratty boyfriends, promotions, toupees, and cell phones can't save you here. The purpose here has become refreshingly—and frighteningly—simple."^[32] The hero's journey has been adapted for screen and television writing before, most notably by formerDisney developmental executiveChristopher Vogler in his bookThe Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. Harmon has noted this book as an influence on the technique, as well as the work ofSyd Field.^[32]Star Wars is an example of a film that consciously set out to use the hero's journey as a template for storytelling success.^[33]

Harmon states that this circular structure of storytelling can be applied both to film and TV, suggesting in a Channel 101 blog that only the final intentions are different: "A feature film's job is to send you out of the theatre on a high in 90 minutes. Television's job is to keep you glued to the television for your entire life. This doesn't entail making stories any less circular (TV circles are so circular they're sometimes irritatingly predictable). It just means that the focus of step 8 is less riling-things-up and more getting-things-back-to-where-they-started."^[34] He has used the story circle technique extensively throughout projects such asCommunity^[35] andRick and Morty.^[36] In an interview withCollider, writer Adam Chitwood said, "Rick and Morty debuted in 2013 to a serious degree of anticipation, as it marked a new animated venture forCommunity creator Dan Harmon, but it was the marriage of Harmon's adeptness for structure and character and co-creatorJustin Roiland's insanely creative/sometimes insane mind that madeRick and Morty much more than just another animated TV series for adults."

In an interview withVulture, Harmon named a number of films, television shows, books, and artists that have shaped his writing style. This includes the filmsRoboCop andNetwork; the television showsCheers,Mr. Show,Arrested Development,Second City Television, andTwin Peaks; the booksSlaughterhouse-Five andThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; the playSexual Perversity in Chicago; and writers, artists, and comedians includingGarry Shandling,George Lucas,Spalding Gray,Charlie Kaufman,Woody Allen,Tom Kenny, andChris Elliott.^[37]

In the sameVulture interview, Harmon mentionedDungeons & Dragons, musicianTori Amos, and evolutionary anthropologistElaine Morgan as influences.^[37] He singled out Morgan'saquatic ape hypothesis, calling it a "peaceful, interesting, mythical concept, and a scientific one, that maybe the origin ofHomo sapiens was kind of a fairy tale".^[37] ForRick and Morty, Harmon and co-creatorJustin Roiland listed a number of influences on the show's style, including,Saturday Night Live,The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,Doctor Who, and the cult sci-fi filmZardoz.^[38]

In July 2009, Harmon was nominated in two Emmy categories for his part in writing the81st Academy Awards telecast:Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special andOutstanding Original Music and Lyrics, the latter of which he was awarded for "Hugh Jackman Opening Number" at the61st Primetime Emmy Awards.

In 2018 and 2020, Harmon won the Emmy for "Outstanding Animated Program" as the executive producer ofRick and Morty.^[39]

He was also nominated with Chris McKenna for a Hugo award for writing theCommunity episode, "Remedial Chaos Theory".^[40]

In 2011, while writing the character Abed forCommunity, Harmon realized through researching the character's traits that he might haveAsperger syndrome. He consulted a doctor about it and concluded that he himself ison the spectrum.^[41][30] On a podcast hosted byKevin Pollak, he said, "I know I'm not normal, but I think the important thing is that [...] I started to discover that I had a lot more in common with Abed than I did with Jeff."^[42]

Harmon proposed to his girlfriendErin McGathy in December 2013,^[43] and they were married in November 2014.^[44] They announced they were divorcing in October 2015.^[45] In 2016, Harmon started dating TV writer Cody Heller.^[46] In January 2019, Heller proposed to Harmon and the couple are now engaged.^[47] Heller adapted a real-life experience with Harmon into the TV seriesDummy, starringAnna Kendrick as Heller andDonal Logue as Harmon.^[48]

On January 2, 2018, Harmon alluded tosexual misconduct from himself towards other people.Megan Ganz, a writer who worked with him onCommunity, named herself as a victim of his misconduct. In response to his apology and willingness to make things right, Ganz said that while she appreciated his gestures, she was not yet ready to forgive him.^[49] After the exchange, he made a lengthy apology on his podcastHarmontown and went into detail about his wrongdoings, which included making advances on Ganz and then mistreating her after she turned him down. Ganz ultimately accepted his apology; she said that she felt vindicated by his admission, called it a "masterclass in how to apologize", and urged herTwitter followers to listen to it.^[50][51]

In July 2018, Harmon received criticism when a comedy skit from 2009 resurfaced. The video, titled "Daryl", was intended to be a parody ofDexter and featured Harmon acting out raping a baby (which, in the video, was a doll). Harmon apologized for the video and said, "In 2009, I made a 'pilot' which strove to parody the seriesDexter and only succeeded in offending. I quickly realized the content was way too distasteful and took the video down immediately. Nobody should ever have to see what you saw and for that, I sincerely apologize."^[52] Adult Swim released a statement criticizing the video, but appeared to be satisfied with Harmon's apology.^[53] Multiple sources associated Harmon's decision to delete his Twitter account with the backlash.^[52][54][55] However, on an episode ofHarmontown in February 2019, he revealed that he had deleted his Twitter account prior to the backlash in response toDisney's firing of James Gunn for jokes that Gunn had made on Twitter between 2008 and 2012.^[56]

• Scud: The Disposable Assassin #4–5, 8–9, 13–15 & 17–19 (co-writer and illustrator Rob Schrab, co-writer Mondy Carter, colorist Zac Rybacki, Fireman Press, 1994)
• La Cosa Nostroid #1–9 (illustrator Edward Clayton, Fireman Press, 1996)
• Monster House (illustrator and co-writer Simeon Wilkins, IDW Publishing, 2006)^[63]

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