IAMA writer for the NBC show Community and former associate editor of The Onion named Megan Ganz, AMA

Dan harmon wins the lottery and says fuck it. He creates his own version of Community online and pays everyone the same. You are writing an episode in the 4th season. Dan asks you for a location, a celebrity guest star, and basic plot.

What three things would you choose given that money and censorship is not an issue?

Oooooh. Good question.

I think Chris McKenna had the idea last year to send them to Vegas. We could never afford to do that. Pierce takes Abed to Vegas to try and "Rain Man" him at the casinos, and the gang has to bring Abed back. Special guest star: Chris Angel?

I am here, and barely awake. Ask away.

What joke or storyline are you most proud of writing for Community?

Troy crying in the bathroom singing "Reading Rainbow."

EDIT: My mistake for answering a "what joke did you write" question. Classic trap. I just wrote that set-up, yes. I though it was funny to see him cry and sing that song. Donald improvised the end.

EDIT: Can I revise the whole answer to say Troy's line in "Cooperative Calligraphy" about wiener dogs?

"Set phasers to love me!!" is one of my favorite lines!

Not to take anything away from Megan, but that line was improvised by Donald.

Yes it was. I just said "Donald, sing and cry and say something at the end." He also said "Roots!" and "But you don't have to take my word for it."

How confident are you of a fourth season?

Reasonably? I think there are so many factors at play (mostly beyond my understanding) that worrying doesn't make a lot of sense. It's like worrying you might get hit by a bus; is that any excuse not to live?

Is there anything we a fans can do to help NBC bring back Community?

Everything you've been doing! You guys are amazing, and you are spreading the word about the show. Also, seeing your zeal has been a much needed boost to the writers. We're finishing the rest of the season "in the dark," so it's good to know there's people out there who are excited about what we're doing.

How much influence did Donald Glover and Danny Pudi have on the roles of Troy and Abed?

Donald Glover had a lot. To see how much, just watch any season three episode, and then the pilot. His character became infused with a lot of the innocence (and fearlessness) that Donald has. Danny Pudi is very different from Abed, which is a testament to his acting abilities. But I think his warmth has shone through Abed's character, especially episodes like second season Christmas and "Critical Film Studies", when we get a glimpse past the Spock and into his heart.

Can you tell us some stories about Chevy?

We filmed his scene for 317 yesterday. He was unusually chipper. I guess he liked the script, because he told me a few times he thought it was funny. We had this exchange:

Chevy: It's a good script. Me: (nervous, mumbly) Thanks. Thank you, Chevy. That means a lot to me, I'm glad you like it. Chevy: It's good. Funny. How about you come to my trailer and take your pants off. Me: Um, no? Chevy: Fine. I'll do it.

CLASSIC Chevy bit.

Do you have the same hatred for shows like Glee and Big Bang Theory that Dan seems to have?

No, I don't watch either. I don't watch a lot of shows though, and I don't hate any of them. And I watch shows I hate and secretly love them.

I am your average television viewer.

Unworthy non-writing related question: I love your meeting notes. How long do they usually take? And do you doodle and brainstorm episodes simultaneously or are these doodles the result of legitimate boredom? Also, sorry that someone took your purple pen. I hope you find it soon.

Thank you. I am afraid the purple pen is lost to time.

I am definitely not bored at work. But we do sit in the same room for hours and hours and hours, and I am a very fidgety, nervous person. I can't leave the room every five minutes when we're trying to break a story, and if I'm not doing anything, my mind wanders. So I spend most days doodling, and listening, and stopping to say something, and then going back to doodling. I have photos from all-nighters of doodles slowly spreading across a legal pad, with Dan in the background.

Last year, the writers thought it made me seem a little psycho. Now they're into it. It's sort of "my thing," and I've started branching out into shapes. Sometimes I fold the doodles into cranes and give them to Dan.

Do you have a felt goatee, and if yes, how often do you use it? Will Evil Troy and Evil Abed reappear?

I do. It is hanging up in my office. All the writers have them, thanks to our prop department!

How does it feel to be part of a show that has such a cult following?

It's great. I'm a nerd on a show for nerds. A show that I myself am nerdy about. I buy the t-shirts, I listen to the commentary, and I stalk Dan Harmon like it's my job. (It kind of is.)

Hello Megan! I love your episodes so much! The documentary and bottle episodes were obviously quite different for the show, will your 4th episode follow this pattern?

Yes.

I NEVER WANTED TO ASK YOU ANYTHING, I ONLY WANTED A PICTURE!!

YOU CAN'T DISAPPOINT A PICTURE!!

Butterfly in the sky...

What is Alison Brie's number? (PM me, okay?)

She's a 10.

Hey Megan! As an avid listener of This American Life, I remember first hearing you (and your 'spork used as knife' headline) as part of The Onion. How did working for the Onion help you land a gig for Dan Harmon and Co.? How does the atmosphere of the Onion writers' room compare to that of Community's? From what I gather, The Onion deals heavily in the 'science of comedy'-- what have you learned during your time there, and how have you incorporated it into your job as a television writer?

Yes, that TAL episode did help, because it got an agent from UTA to call me while I was still at The Onion, and ask me if I had any representation. A year later he started representing me as I began submitting packets to different shows, like Colbert and Daily Show, and Important Things With Demetri Martin (which was my first job in television). That moved me out to LA, where I wrote a spec and started interviewing for shows. Community was my first choice, my first interview, and my first hire. I wouldn't have stayed in Los Angeles for any other reason.

Both Community and The Onion have very strong opinions about how their comedy is made. Different mediums, but a similar emphasis on structure. At The Onion, everything was about economy of words and objective newspeak. Outside of the editorials, the paper was never in on the joke. It rose above and reported the facts. It just so happens that those facts are funny. It took me a year before I was able to produce an Onion article correctly. But going through the process of learning how to write in a voice that's not your own was very valuable to me. I learned how to be funny within constraints. Now I love structure.

And now that I've used it, I can't imagine ever writing a story that didn't adhere to Dan's story circle. It's a perfect jumping off point. It's a warm, round blanket you wrap around yourself to protect you from the cold, dark void of a blank Final Draft page. I've always liked circles, and now my days are filled with them.

Hi Megan! I'm a huge fan! Cooperative Calligraphy is my favorite episode. Congrats on your 4th episode! What do you know now that you wish you had known when you wrote your first one?

Wow, so much. Thankfully, the bottle episode was pretty contained, so I didn't have to know a lot about TV to write it. (And I knew a lot less than that.) It was kind of like writing a play. The writing has come along pretty easy, but knowing everything about the production side (i.e. the actual filming and editing of the episode) has been a huge learning curve. Dan has been really great about letting me sit in the edit bay while he edits my episode, which has really helped. While you're on set, there are two or three cameras filming different angles of the same scene, and you need to know what angle you'll likely be using when, so you make sure to get the correct performance in that angle. It's hard, and I'm learning it a lot more slowly than the writing stuff.

What is Chang's future in the series? He doesn't seem associated with the study group at all anymore.

You don't make plans for Ken Jeong. You release him like a beautiful but totally insane butterfly.

I love Community. Do you have any advice for someone who wants to be a writer?

Always write what you think is funny. That's all you'll ever be able to offer anyone anyway. And if you're applying for or submitting to a publication or show, watch or read that thing A LOT. And submit something to them that is in the style of their show. Know a ton about it. The best way to get hired anywhere is to make the person above you think that having you around would immediately start making their lives easier.

How was the cast of Community to work with? They seem to have amazing chemistry on the show

They are literally, all of them, fantastic people. I got to spend time with them all last week while shooting 317 and we had so much fun. For 13 hours a day we had fun.

This is fairly specific, but in Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism they reference Annie throwing out Abed's noodles, but don't explain it in detail. The other plot, the Foosball plot, is based on the noodle incident trope where Jeff and Shirley reference things from their past but don't get into detail until the dinner scene. My question is, was the reference to Annie throwing out Abed's noodles a direct reference to the 'noodle incident' trope which is a major part of the other storyline? Or just some really amazing coincidence?

Wow. I have no idea. I didn't know that was a trope even. Dan probably did though, and I'll look dumb for asking him. Ah well. Hold on, I'll text.

EDIT: Apparently he didn't write buttered noodles. That was a detail added by Chris Kula, who wrote the episode. You'd have to ask him. Or we could just pretend like the show meant to do it.

Ok, admit it, you did this.

Ha. Oh Lord, no. I have no idea how to edit things in Wikipedia. Although, if anyone here does (what are the chances?!) it's not actually true that the editor of Mad told me to apply to The Onion. He just told me I should move back to New York and pursue comedy writing, because he thought I was good. I went back to Michigan and finished my last year of college, and then I applied to The Onion thing. But while I was at Mad I did sell my first idea ever. It was a concept for a fold-in. Al Jaffee sent me a letter. My head exploded. And it was the first time I got paid for being funny.

Are you a qualified architect?

I think that was a reference to a podcast I did with Ken Plume. Actually, I'm sure of it.

Who came up with the Spanish rap and did you have any idea how popular it would get?

Dan Harmon wrote it. And I can't imagine he knew. I saw it while I was still living in New York and couldn't stop repeating it around my apartment.

I was wondering what it's like working with/for Dan. He seems so intense and yet brilliant. How do you get along with him? You have really made a name for yourself within this show so you must know.

Dan Harmon is a genius. I'm saying that up front in case he finds this page while googling "Dan Harmon + genius." Hi, Harmon!

I once told Dan that he wouldn't be a page in my autobiography, he'd be the font. Having him as my mentor during the first years of my television career will shape my writing forever, and I couldn't have asked for a better guide. He taught me everything I know about writing for TV. Hell, everything I know about story period. The writing I've done for him has been the absolute best I'm capable of. I doubt I'll ever be more proud of anything.

This isn't a question, but I just wanted to tell you that I think you're super cute and want to hold your hand and listen to you be funnier than me.

(a la Shirley and Annie) Awwww!

Is there anything you can say about the perceived Flanderization of Shirley? Aside from the foosball episode, she seems to have become little more than a caricature of religious people.

I would argue the opposite. If anything, Shirley's character was more one-dimensional first season, before her rendezvous with Chang and pregnancy. And in the foosball episode, we can see how delicately constructed her "That's nice" personality is. She has a lot of rage underneath that politeness, which doesn't make her belief in religion false, but definitely tests her resolve at times. I think she's even more admirable for staying true to her beliefs in spite of her weaknesses, in spite of the darkness in her past. And I liked that Jeff likes her darker side, because he himself has spent his life covering up a softer, weaker side. He went hard, she went soft. They should drink more margaritas and talk it out.

What is the Community writer's room/ atmosphere like? How does it compare to the room/ atmosphere at The Onion?

The Community writers spends a LOT more time together than The Onion writers did. At the paper, we would have a couple hours of meetings a day, and do the rest of our writing separately. At Community, we spend all day long in the same room, talking about the episodes, so there isn't a distinction between when we're working and when we're fucking around. Everything is more fluid. Which is probably why we hang out more outside of work too. The Onion was this meeting, this meeting, that meeting, goodbye I'm going home. And on Fridays we'd drink whiskey and talk, and reconnect.

Both rooms are full of screamingly funny people. I consider myself lucky to have had a chair in both of them.

Is it especially hard to write for any of the characters/actors?

http://i.imgur.com/UmXJC.gif

I was doing a "hilarious" "bit" with Luke (who plays Magnitude) on set of 317 where I kept saying, "Hey, did you learn your line? We are not slowing down for you. You better be off book."

It's almost as funny as the bit I did with Donald during the Halloween episode (when he was filming Pierce's story with the braids and the gold teeth) where I kept telling him we were about to start shooting and he needed to get into costume! Ah, well. We have fun, don't we.

Did you go to college and if so what degree did you earn? Where was your first internship?

I went to the University of Michigan and graduated with High Honors in English. Which means I wrote a thesis (on David Sedaris, actually) and took veeeeeeeerrrrry little science. After I graduated, no job I've ever had has looked at my transcript, or even cared if I graduated college.

BUT, while I was there I wrote for a satirical newspaper on campus called The Every Three Weekly. I ran the paper for my last two years. Through them, I found out about a internship at Mad Magazine (my first job in comedy, a six-week internship between my junior and senior years). During my last year, The Onion sent an email to our paper--and the satirical papers of a number of other colleges--telling us about a writing fellowship program they were starting. I sent in headlines and some News In Briefs, and got selected to do it. From that I got my job there, and everything else.

Hey Megan! I still have this shirt.

Whoa! I lost mine a couple years ago. I loved that thing.

Can you elaborate on your affinity towards geometric shapes?

I think it's because I can't draw things like a horse or a landscape. I can only be OCD and repeat the same lines over and over. And then I got into origami polyhedrons and... I don't know why. My dating life is probably responsible for that.

Have always been curious, are you related to Lowell Ganz (writer for Happy Days, Lavern and Shirley)?

Nope. I get this question a lot, though.

Community has amazing sight-gags. Like, seriously,the best I've seen on any show. For example, Beetlejuice, hoisting the phallic City College Flag up the flagpole until it meets the Greendale Anus-flag in the paintball episode and so many others.

Are these jokes written into the script by you writers, or are they conjured up on set while filming?

All of those you mentioned were written in the script. Generally they are, but sometimes props and set design will work with the writer-on-set to come up with some added jokes.

1) Are there plans to end season 3 with a paintball episode? 1b) If not, you guys should.

Not as of yet. But don't worry... there is a battle on the horizon. One unlike any you've seen before.

What other shows do you watch?

Current? Archer, It's Always Sunny, Law and Order: SVU, House, The First 48, Breaking Bad... I'm sure there's some I'm forgetting.

Lately I've been obsessed with Peep Show. It just went up on Netflix and I can't stop watching it. Did the same thing with Pulling a few months ago. Might move to London and start writing for the BBC instead.

Megan Ganz! Woah. I'm sure you'll get a torrent of "advice for aspiring writers" queries, but I was wondering if you might elaborate a little on the route you traversed, professionally. In retrospect, is there anything you'd do differently? Did you make sure to keep your creative output high, even before being hired for The Onion?

There's no one way to get into comedy. One of the editors at The Onion, Joe Garden, (he's been working there since nearly the beginning, is hysterically funny and responsible for so much of what I love about that paper), used to work for a liquor store and while he was there, he made funny signs. Like one that had a picture of a brain, with arrows pointing to "Frontal Lobe," "Backal Lobe," and in the middle, "Michelob." One of the Onion editors was a regular, and thought they were funny. He asked Garden to come to a meeting and he's still there now.

Hows it like working with Donald Glover?

I have known Donald since we both lived in New York. He was writing for 30 Rock and I was still at The Onion. You could have called me a Derrick groupie, for real. I started watching Community because he was on it, and right before we shot the first scene of my first episode, I was sitting behind the monitors looking at him sitting at the study room table, and I texted him "Isn't this so cool?" and he wrote back "I KNOWWWWWW." I love Donald. He was born a superstar.

In "Cooperative Caligraphy", you can see the monkey taking Annie's pen from the desk during the first minutes of the episode. 1) Was that something that came up during the filming of the episode or was it planned all along? 2) Are there other Easter Eggs that you are willing to share with us from other episodes?

Thanks a lot!

I think Joe Russo and Dan came up with the idea on set, the week before we started shooting. That's when they decided the monkey should steal the pen. We knew for a while that the group would agree it was a ghost and that's what they would settle on, but originally, the pen was going to get flung into a vent by some Rube Goldberg process. The idea for Annie's Boobs came up before filming, and along with it, came the idea to have the monkey actually snatch the pen in the cold open.

Watching the monkey do it was amazing. You can't see Joel on camera in that moment, but every take we did he was just staring at the monkey next to him, who was being held by the trainer under the table. The monkey did it perfect every time and the trainer would give it a little dollop of strawberry yogurt.

Best actor I've ever worked with.

How long have you been doing origami? It's wildly impressive.

Thanks! Since the second grade. My teacher showed me how to fold a crane and I was hooked. Something that allowed me to hunch over my desk, avoid eye contact, and make pretty little birds? SIGN ME UP.

Love the show and I've got a couple of questions. First, out of the episodes you've written what is your favorite? And the ones you haven't written? How is the off-camera interactions compared to other shows you have worked on? Can you give us any glimpses into other upcoming episodes? Thank you in Advance.

There is a light that never goes out for the Bottle Episode. It was my first and pure dialogue. The first doc episode is probably the one that makes me laugh the most, and I think the scene between Joel and Pierce at the end of Act One is some of the best acting either of them have done on the show. "Documentary Filmmaking: Redux" let me work with Jim Rash, who made me cry (from laughter and not) and Garrett in a motion-capture suit.

But the episode we just shot (#317) MAY prove to be my favorite. If I were still just a fan of the show, like I was in season one, I think I would probably love #317 the most.

How much of a possibility is there that we are going to see Evil Troy and Evil Abed from the parallel universe again?

Evil Abed did say it was their "one evil goal." Sounds like he meant it.

Hey Megan! I was an intern at the Onion while you were there but I don't think we ever met! I'm wondering how different the writers room meetings are from the Onion editorial meetings? Also does Community accepted spec scripts? And lastly, I just moved to LA, what advice can you give about working in television?

Hi!

I answered the first part earlier, but here goes for the rest: No, Community doesn't accept spec scripts. Not for episodes anyway. But there is a whole process for hiring that involves looking a spec script you've written, so they are a good idea to have. An agent can tell you how to submit all that stuff. I really don't know how it works, still. My agents sent my material around to a lot of people, and then I sat in rooms with a lot of people for a while, and then some of those people told Dan about me (he already knew me a bit from twitter) and Dan wanted to interview me. And then I was hired. That's what the process felt like to me. I have no idea how the sausage was made between those meetings.

How would you describe the show to someone who has never seen it?

Never the same show twice.

What was your longest stretch of "writer's block" that ended up resulting in a scene you're especially proud of once you overcame it? What was the scene?

The cold open to the Bottle Episode. It was the first thing I had ever written for television. It was for my favorite show on television, and it was going to be read by Dan and he was going to know what kind of writer I really was. It took me two days to touch my computer. I smoked a pack of cigarettes, and I don't smoke. When I had to send in the script, I took two shots of whiskey. I couldn't barely do it. It was terrifying.

But then Dan sat next to me in the writers room, and started reading it and laughing. I think I ran out of the room. I couldn't watch him read it. But then he shortened it, and tweaked the jokes, and a lot of what I wrote stayed in. Even the "catch to date" business, which is exactly my sense of humor. Harmon kept all my best jokes and trimmed all the fat. Then he added a bunch of gold. It was the best edit of anything I've written. I'm so proud of it.

I don't have a question but I wanted to tell you that I am going to watch your show because of the AMA.

Good! If you've got the time, start from the beginning and invite 1 million of your friends to join you.

Has there been any sort of silver lining to the hiatus, from a writing perspective?

Not really. We have to stay on the same schedule and produce the episodes just as quickly, because they will air eventually. So since Christmas it feels like writing in the dark. Usually we get to see you guys watch the shows and hopefully like them, and it keeps us going during late nights. But now we're writing things for a shelf. Still, though, there are some doozies coming up. I'm so excited.

My Favorite http://www.nbc.com/community/video/troy-and-abed-rap-christmas-infiltration/1372231 , plz keep em coming. if i may ask is it a group effort or an individual that comes up with these rhymes?

Dan wrote the Christmas rap, with a little help from Annie Mebane, Adam Countee, and me. Donald adjusted it a bit for himself. But Dan is the lyrical mastermind, especially behind Abed's bridge, which I love.

As I have never seen the show, which episode would you choose to convince me to watch Community?

The pilot.

What is the your favorite episode, and if it's different, what is the episode you wish you had written?

"Critical Film Studies" is my favorite. It's the one I rewatch the most. It's the one I don't think would have been possible on any other show but Community, with any other showrunner than Dan Harmon. I sat in a room with him for a week as he wrote that episode, as we talked about Abed's monologue and Cougartown for hours and hours and days. I remember going home on Wednesday and realizing that I was thinking my thoughts in Dan's voice. It felt like we went crazy together. But he had such a strong vision for the episode, all I had to do was cheer him on, because I was watching it come together and knowing it was going to be great. Whenever he'd start doubting it, I'd just say, "No please keep writing this! I want to watch this episode now. Write it. It's already great." And then he handed it to Danny Pudi and blast-off.

Really, someone show me a better performance in a television sitcom than Danny Pudi transforming from Abed to Andre Gregory and back again in 22 minutes. Honestly. Cover that man in Emmys.

Megan -- Did you pick the Betelgeuse (Beetlejuice) reference up as a fan of Season 1 and help carry it through to its conclusion? Harmon seems to credit you for that particular slowburning joke.

We had the word "Beetlejuice" in #304, originally, (in the little speech the security guard gives Chang about the thing, the arm thing, the parking lot thing, with the stripes...) and one morning I realized that was the second time we had used that word. We also used it in the Bottle Episode. So I came in and jokingly warned Dan during our morning meeting, that the show had said Beetlejuice twice and we had better be careful. Then he out-nerded me by remembering that it was said once in first season (by Prof. Slater). We had the idea to take it out of 304 and put it in the Halloween episode, so we could have him make an appearance.

Perhaps not as impressive as planning it for three years, but come on. Have you ever heard a writing staff more nerdy about their own show?

So I just started watching Community a few days ago, and I am hooked! Thanks for helping me fail my exams :)

You might learn some Spanish from season one. Probably not.

On a scale of 1 to Bagel, how much do you still miss New York?

Three billion bagels.

I'd imagine that writing for the Onion involves a high volume of material. How many headlines and pitches did you have to create every day?

We wrote between 15 and 20 every Monday morning. Then we'd each write a story a week, and some other daily content. When I started they were writing Our Dumb World, so I wrote two stories a week. It was terrifying.

Has the possibility of Community not returning for a fourth season affected the remaining episodes in the season?

How could it not?

What was your favorite article from The Onion during your time working there?

Of the ones I wrote: http://www.theonion.com/articles/world-leaders-gather-to-roast-mahmoud-ahmadinejad,2381/

and

http://www.theonion.com/articles/but-if-we-started-dating-it-would-ruin-our-friends,11473/

The latter one was the last story I wrote for The Onion before I left for Los Angeles. (I wrote some freelance stories after I moved too, but this was the last one I wrote on staff.) It basically went in the paper unedited. I guess the day before I left, I finally figured out how to do my job correctly.

Do you have some form of writing ritual, such as needing a specific coffee mug or editing your own writing with a green pen?

I wear knee-high socks when I write. And sometimes I wear headphones but don't plug them into anything. I just like the feeling of them on my head.

Hello Megan! HUGE fan here, I've gotten probably about 25 people hooked on the show, they are all very enthusiastic about the show now.

Question: What kind of demographic did they have in mind, when the show was starting up?

If by "they," you mean Sony and NBC, I'm sure the demographic they had in mind was, well... bigger.

Are you diagnosed with OCD, or is it just the way you describe how you deal with your anxiety?

No, I have not been. And I don't think I have it. But I do have little rituals that keep me from fidgeting. And I would call myself obsessive. I like repetition to the point of boredom.