Do we like Dan Harmon?
Our score: 5 out of 10. A decent record on the harm side, offset by his own admission of mistreating a writer he supervised, and thin evidence of good beyond the work.
Dan Harmon is the bloke behind two of the most loved comedies of the last twenty years: Community, and Rick and Morty, which he co-created with Justin Roiland. He has long been known as a prickly, self-lacerating writer who talks openly about his own failings. That honesty cuts both ways, as the stories below show.
The big stain is from 2018. After a public exchange on Twitter, former Community writer Megan Ganz raised how he had treated her, and Harmon responded with a long apology. He admitted he was attracted to a writer he supervised, said he resented her for not feeling the same, and said he was cruel to her while controlling her job. In his words, he was “attracted to a writer that I had power over because I was a showrunner.” An admission that frank counts for something. It is still an admission of misusing power.
The other scandal is a 2009 sketch called Daryl, a Dexter parody made for Channel 101, which resurfaced in July 2018. It depicted the sexual assault of a baby doll and was widely condemned. Harmon apologised, saying he took it down quickly after realising it was too distasteful. Adult Swim called it poor judgement and accepted his apology. It is a nasty piece of comedy from nearly two decades ago, not a pattern we found repeated.
On the harm test, we found no words or campaigns from him against LGBTQ+ people, migrants or the planet. A search for statements on trans issues, vaccines or climate came up empty. Going the other way, in 2017 he said trolls who doxxed and threatened the female writers on Rick and Morty were disgusting, and he condemned fans who tried to protect the show from them. We found no flagged company-keeping either, though we didn't dig through every credit.
When Roiland was hit with fresh allegations in 2023, Harmon told The Hollywood Reporter he felt “frustrated, ashamed and heartbroken”. He said he last spoke to Roiland in 2019. He didn't address the specific allegations, and Roiland's lawyer had called them false. Harmon hasn't been accused of anything in that matter, and he did publicly distance himself from it.
The good stuff is mostly the work and the way he owned up. We couldn't verify charity or public service from the pages we read, so that's honestly the whole list. His public apologies were detailed rather than weaselly, but an apology isn't a pass on its own, and the evidence since is mostly that he has stayed out of fresh trouble.