Abed reminds me of Bird Person.
Jeff, Troy, Annie are more standard sitcom characters afaict. Not developed subversively.
Shirley would be awkward today. Cuts a bit close to the emerging black+antisemite thing.
Pierce seems written for Chevy Chase to be himself.
Conversation
The pre-Weirding vibe is very disturbing though. It’s like we know, but the show doesn’t, that there’s a nuclear bomb under the set and everything they do either accelerates or slows the countdown.
This is a good test for any show from 2000-15.
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Ah they figured out the clips-from-non-existing-episodes episode idea on Community first.
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Chang living in the air vents with a monkey is very much a cartoon kinda premise. Interesting how the gimmicky episodes (paintball, stop motion), while annoying, work better than they do in regular shows, since this is basically a live-action cartoon.
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Chang is basically a loud in-your-face version of Gollum in LOTR.
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Both here and in The Hangover he’s created a very interesting stock character: the personification of a system’s insanity. He’s the truest slave of the community college or Vegas crime world etc.
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Hmm. I haven’t seen this archetype tagged. Kramer is another example. Personification of systemic crazy. Like an animist spirit or something. Like a demiurge but as ultimate gollumized consumer of a system rather than its creator. An anti-demiurge.
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I don’t think this character exists in Rick and Morty. They were setting up the math teacher Mr. Goldenfold sort of like this, but I think gave up. R&M doesn’t have a Chang. Interesting. I guess Rick himself carries that aspect.
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Another way to understand it: Chang is pure shadow, no self. He pops as an individual only via projection of others. Otherwise he’s inseparable from the systemic unconscious.
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Ah... also like Milo Minderbender in Catch-22. Ok damn, Dan Harmon is climbing in my rankings rapidly. He might pull ahead of Matt Groening and Matt Stone/Trey Parker.
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I normally wouldn’t read this much Jungian significance into stuff, but Harmon clearly is a nerd of this stuff from his own writings.
