The Point Radio: COMMUNITY Gets Their Pilot Back

This week, COMMUNITY comes back to NBC for a fifth season and this time they have Dan Harmon running the ship again. Series regulars Joel McHale and Jim Rash talk about the joys of the new season and the woes of the last, plus ROCKY & BULLWINKLE bring Mark Evanier back to comics and Marvel kicks Barnes & Noble while they are down. THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Transcript

The Point Radio Hey, it's Mike Raub. What a great way to start out the new year. Community is back. Joe McHale and Jim Rasha here to talk about the return of Dan Harmon, how things are on the set, and exactly where the funny does come from. Plus, there's some Rocky and Bull wiggling your future, and Marvel kicks Barnes and Noble while they're down. Let's get to The Point.

This is The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. Well, you probably know community is back, but more important, Dan Harmon is back guiding the shift for this new season for NBC. So much was written about the backstage drama over the past couple of years that I had to wonder, was it really that bad or was there a little exaggeration in there? I asked a question of cast member Jim Rash. I think partly blown out of proportion in the sense

that I think we just sort of, we were that show that has been sort of under the radar for so long as far as ratings wise. And you know, we've always been blessed to be able to come back. And I think we never really know where we're going. So I feel like the, in a weird way, the drama sort of kept us sort of out there. You know, it was sort of like our drama behind the stage was sort of keeping community sort of on people's minds outside of fans, I guess.

Siri star Joel McHale was among those who campaigned heavily to get Dan back on the show. And of course, then this season is a big relief to him. Especially this year, you know, with Dan back, the material has been, I mean, the scripts have been so great that it becomes, you know, with all the things that have been have happened with the show, when the material is so good, you kind of forget about that stuff. And, you know, last year was kind of the crazy year. And

but but now that Dan is back, it's like, you know, the monarchy has been restored and things are as they should be. So, so in that sense, it's I've, the sense of relief that I've had this year has been tremendous. In addition to acting Jim Rish is also an accomplished even Oscar award winning writer. And he did contribute to last season on community. He told me that for those involved creatively on the show last year, it was pretty much a thankless job without Dan,

I think you can't help but feel you can't not have Dan's mind and the and the creator's mind and not feel there's some kind of difference. I mean, I think that as great as a task that was before them, and as great as these writers were, that we've had over all of our seasons, you know, the map is fantastic. But Dan's brain, you can't sort of replicate and sort of his vision. I think it's, it's, it's, you know, part of the whole staff is sort of to, to sort of go into

that vision and help service it. But without him, you know, you don't really have your sort of guide through that. And, and so while there was so many things that were so already created by the first three seasons, as far as the depth of the characters, the the world, how things work, how it operate, how it can be both fantastical, but at the same time character grounded, those things are all there. But without somebody who has this sort of approach to make it so dense and deep with layers,

you know, it's difficult. It's a it's a Herculean task that, you know, I certainly want to take on, but I think we did our best, you know, NBC's made it known there's a lot of great guest stars in the new season. But I wondered, does any of that weaken the strength of the ensemble that's always been the core of community? I asked Joel McHale. No, not at all. I think there was no I would say it only supported it. And I think the guest stars, because Dan's writing is so terrific, he,

even though there are a lot of guest stars, he doesn't fall into that trap of at all, even not even near the trap of people start using guest stars to to make up for storytelling. And all they all the all these guest stars only absolutely support and enhance it. And I think we are guest stars are so creative like Vince Gilligan and Mitch Hurwitz and Chris Elliott and Paul Williams talk about a crazy group of people, including Gina Gershon and the incredible, beautiful,

lovely, Brie Larson. It just it's I think it's some of the most I think it's the most creative guest stars of the last I'm going to go with the last hundred years of television. One big change, the loss of Chevy Chase. And how does that affect the cast on and off the camera? Jim Rache comments it out with the departure of Chevy from the show. I think it was a way to sort of service both how he affected the study group, the character of Pearson and how they would move forward from this

moment. You know, and I think that it's always difficult when you know, a transition period happens, obviously, you know, five episodes, then we deal with the transition of Troy leaving the school. But I think it's I think it's it's about passage of time and and you know, it's the same thing as deciding it all the four season had happened the way it happened and then used replications, the ramifications of the choices made there into the fifth season. So I think it

was sort of approaching it from the growth of the characters and what it meant for them and the impact of a singular guy on the rest of them. Same thing that will be dealt with with the Troy departure. Of course, the biggest character change is that in Jeff Winger. And of course, that affects Joel Muchena. I would say that this year, Jeff, that my character, because of now he's a professor, he is once again somewhat destabilized and his immaturity are exposed a whole new set of them.

And I think there was a number of things that kind of got taken care of last year. And those things, they're not things that just get kind of wrapped up there. As people in real life, people do are able to overcome some things, but they always they always have to, you know, it's not like something like, well, that was that was done. Now I'm fixed. It's more like you are constantly finding new kind of things to fix and hopefully make you hopefully make that person

healthier. But but Jeff is, you know, he's got a he had years of selfishness. And a bunch of that, I think it's re exposed to very fun to play. But there's no doubt, though, that he loves this study group. And he has to really come to terms with how he feels about the school ultimately. And I think, and just absolutely lays those things out well for for Jeff to have to deal with. And as an actor, it was really fun to deal with. And as for Jim Reisch's character, Dean Pelton. Well,

I think this year, you know, much like the re pilot sort of theme, I think one of the things that we get back to a little bit with season five is that, you know, is is that a already figure side of the Dean, you know, although he's well intentioned and makes huge mistakes. He does love the school. So he's obviously giddy that Jeff is back both as an entity. So in the idea of helping save the school, which is once again, in jeopardy and content

history, I think it's in a constant state of in jeopardy. And this this year, definitely leads up to sort of something big, in the sense of what that you know, the loss that the Dean would feel with the school not being around with these, you know, people not being around him, which he is sort of folded into their family by force. There are a lot of fans who believe that the comedy magic on the show comes from improvisation. But Joel told me that's definitely not true.

Then is not an improvised comedy and Dan, all the stuff that Dan is saying in every episode, they're very deliberate parts of the train track that is being laid down to get to the end of this season. So I it says I in this now I know it's really grandiose, but it's as specific as, you know, Shakespeare was with his words where there's really nothing I don't think there's nothing that's left for you know, there's nothing there's no access. And so anyway, so yeah, yeah. So no,

there's not much improvising going on. But as you can see from the performance that they look like the room provides because the actors are so damn good. New episodes of community every Thursday on NBC or catch up right now at NBC on demand and see some cool clips as well and NBC.com will leave the best up list everybody else. Let's catch up on what's happening right now in pop culture. As everybody offers up a different percentage of how sales were during the Christmas

season. We do know that online sales in the final week before the holiday were up almost 40% where they were in 2012. And that caused a huge amount of delays with both UPS and FedEx in the last minute. If you were one of the ones affected, then you probably got a reward in some way either a gift card or a big discount from the retailer you were dealing with. However, the more interesting fact we'll see how this affects online sales next year with a lot of those last minute gifts ordered

online not arriving in time. Well, that'd make more people want to shop in brick and mortar stores for Christmas 2014. While it hasn't quite beaten the hobbit in the holiday box office sales, Anchorman 2 is sure holding its own. And this might even help with a little bit. Some theaters around the country are offering an anchor pass a chance to pay one price and see Anchorman 2 as many times as you'd like from now until the end of its release sometime early in the year. Estimated prices seem

to be around 15 bucks for this and there are a number of theaters all around the country doing it. Starting out of course with the very innovative guys over at the Alamo Drafthouse. To find out if you can participate, check with your local theater chain to see if they are doing the same promotion. It's been a year of mixed blessings for soap opera fans with the failure of online soaps like One Life to Live and All My Children from Prospect Park. But the big success online in the ratings

department for shows like General Hospital and of course the Bold and the Beautiful. But did you know about Tainted Love? It's a soap within a soap web series that features a ton of stars from the shows including General Hospital as the world turns and of course All My Children and One Life to Live. It's set to debut online early in the new year but if you want to see some samples right now you can check them out at TVGuide.com. According to a report that came out of Barnes and Noble,

Marvel has made the decision to take their comics out of the stores in the new year. It does not apply to graphic novels but you won't be able to pick up your regular monthly Marvel comics in any Barnes and Noble store or apparently in any other book retailer as well. Books and millions say they are also part of that same decision and no official word on this from Marvel as well. In the meantime like we said it will not affect graphic novels at this point.

It also does not affect the comics put in stores from DC, Dark Horse, Archie or IDW. Rocky and Bullwinkle returned to comics at IDW with a new series planned to hit stores in March. It'll be written by Eisner Winter and TV writer as well, Marc Evanier, and drawn by Roger Landridge with Stephanie Buscema doing some variant coverage of the series. The book will feature all the regular characters and a regular Dudley Do-Right backup story as well. And again IDW plans to have

the first issue in stores in March. For Unlike Christmas Week there's an abundance of new comics headed into the new year with a whole list of titles from both DC and Marvel and especially Dark Horse and IDW. It starts with a lineup of one dollar books from Dark Horse to give you a chance to try some things. For a dollar you can get the first issue of Cap the Midnight, Conan the Barbarian or X as well. Also Juice Squeezers from David Lapham is a new Dark Horse title that you may

want to check out. And if you're following the George Lucas original Star Wars series they're doing there's a zero issue this week that kind of gives you some background on it. So even if you haven't read the other issues this might be a good place to start. From DC Neil Gaiman's Dead Boy Detectives gets in our own series with the first issue and Superman Unchained finally gets a fifth issue. It's well worth a look especially the earlier issues. Great work here

by Jim Lee. Vertigo Essentials is another dollar series from DC and this time they give you a chance to pick up the first issue of American Vampire for only a buck. There's a second printing of Samurai Jack number one from IDW and a second printing of Black Science number one from Image and also another book that was kind of odd and you at least have to pick it up and page through it. It's called Little Ernie number one yet it is the boyhood adventures of evil Ernie. All that and

more waiting for you in a comic store near you. Start the new year out by supporting your local store. Find all the ones in your area with the comic book locator service 1-888-COMIC-BOOK or with the free link that's available in the front of comicbigs.com or another website called findmycomicshop.com. Our holiday break ends on the sixth and we're back full-time with a couple of podcasts every

week for you on great websites like comicbigs.com and michaeldavasworld.com and always in the iTunes podcast directory. There's no break in pop culture for the Point Radio. We're on 24-7 anytime you need us and get the point radio.com or on any mobile device android or apple with a great app called iNed Radio. Get that at iNedRadio.com or in your app store. Follow us on twitter on the Point Radio and on facebook in the same way but above all thanks for another great year we'll see you just

around the corner.