Part two of the interview with Megan Ganz

• Cooperative Calligraphy is the first episode of Community that Megan has a “written by” credit for.
• Season 2 always intended to contain a bottle episode. Megan had wanted to write one and was scheduled to write the 8th episode.
• In discussing potential plots for a bottle episode, Dan casually threw out “just have a mcguffin that people have to care about, like, I don’t know, someone stole a pen.” Of course when your boss suggests something, why not run with it?
• Annie was picked to be the driving force since it was decided that her character would be most likely to care about a pen from the very beginning.
• Bringing Britta in further establishes that the fight becomes about principle, not the pen.
• The monkey being the root cause of the pen disappearance was chosen very late.
• Original it was a breeze from the air-conditioner setting off a Rube Goldberg like setup resulting in the pen going missing.
• Dan later on had the idea about Annie’s Boobs stealing the pen.
• Unlike many episodes, this episode was shot in order.
• Chris McKenna came up with the Abed tracking the menstrual cycles gag based on a documentary he had seen about a kid with autism who had tracked his mother’s moods, and had unknowingly tracked her menstrual cycles.
• The Beetlejuice gag continues here, but only in Season 3 did the writers retro-actively realize they were going to do the Beetlejuice joke.
• It was not planned from the beginning, but in season 3 a line was written referencing Beetlejuice, Megan joked “you know what happens when you say Beetlejuice three times.” Dan did not remember referencing Beetlejuice so much, but Megan had such intimate knowledge of the show she could remember the exact episodes. That led to the famous Beetlejuice conjuring in the Halloween episode.
• The writers knew that at this point, Jeff and Britta were sleeping together. “Gwennifer” was Jeff’s codename for her and the fake call was to let her know they had to stay for the bottle episode.
• Crystal the monkey was so good, she grabbed the pen on the second take.
• On Britta’s character change over time, Megan attributes that to the goofy energy Gillian brought to the part, which all of the writers fell in love with.
• While Megan has no info on whether or not a movie is happening, she would love to see it.

Research Thanks To: MinotaurMan

Fun fact from part one of the interview with Megan Ganz

• Megan’s journey into comedy started with watching shows such as Married With Children, SNL, or Letterman with her dad.
• Molly Shannon, Cheri Oteri, and Kaitlin Olson were all big influences on Megan.
• Megan’s first job for television was writing on the Dimitri Martin show.
• Megan was such a fan of Community after Season 1 it was the only show she applied for following Dimitri Martin.
• Dan Harmon employs a technique called the story circle when breaking down stories.
• Regarding Season 4, Megan stayed for that season, and is grateful that it exists, since without Season 4, there is no Season 5 nor Season 6.
• Part of the writing process on Community was creating what was called a spit draft – a rough version of the script where characters will say the sloppiest version of their dialog. For example, during a fight a character might say “I am in a fight with you.” This would function as an outline as rewriting a bad script is easier than writing from scratch.

Research Thanks To: MinotaurMan

Fun Facts from the interview with Actor/Writer Jordan Black – Dean Spreck

• Jordan wanted to become an actor from his love of The Fonz on Happy Days
• Jordan and Community writer Andy Bobrow both started at the improv troupe Groundlings
• Both also started writing for the sketch comedy show Hype on the WB
• Together they had written a sketch called Kid Rook, about a “badboy” of chess
• Jordan himself is actually in the Pistol Patty costume for the entirety of A Fistful of Paintballs
• At the time of this recording, Jordan had still not watched all of Community, a fact that was embarrassing at a convention
• Jordan (and thus Dean Spreck) was supposed to be in season 6, however scheduling conflicts did not allow this to happen
• Jordan would be very excited to be in a future Community movie. His dream plot involves Greendale and City College merging, with Dean Spreck in charge, and Dean Pelton under him. The conflict would be free-ing Greendale from the Evil Dean and restoring Pelton.
• Jordan knew Jim Rash before Community from Groundlings
• Jordan had also worked with Joel McHale and Danny Pudi previously on a TV pilot called “Giants of Radio” that was never picked up
• Jordan is currently working on the Punky Brewster reboot for the Peacock streaming service

Research Thanks To: MinotaurMan

Facts and Tidbits from the interview with Prop Maker Chris Branan

• In “Digital Exploration of Interior Design” and “Pillows and Blankets” the geodesic dome cushion fort was constructed from a kit intended for Burning Man. Because it was meant to be assembled in the desert, the blueprints were printed on a t-shirt.
• The pillow fort was so comfortable the crew would take naps inside.
• Chris makes several appearances in “Conventions of Space and Time”. Once sitting in the audience in front of actor Matt Lucas. Then again in the posters as the Space Viking Villain Ümlaütsøn the Terrible.
• In study room F, over Britta’s shoulder is a trap door, which was used as a camera port, or left open so the Director could observe the scenes being filmed.
• The fire escape outside of Troy and Abed’s apartment was made from fence material from Home Depot, and could be wheeled in and out.
• Paint from paintballs do not always appear well on camera. Vinyl decals were often used to depict paint splats.
• At the end of Season 2, it was not apparent if Community was to be renewed. Almost as the final episodes depict, the Greendale set was mostly trashed to film the paintball episodes. With just a few days remaining, the show was renewed and the crew had to rapidly reconstruct the set.
• Chris and Ken Jeong share common friends through a comedy troupe in New Orleans, and became friends on-set through this connection.
• Chevy Chase once gave the whole crew urine detectors (blacklight flashlights) for Christmas.
• Chevy also once hijacked a tour bus that was visiting the studio, and began to give fake tours to passengers.
• When running out of time, the crew would use the term “Greendale Good” to call a set piece suitable quality for a college like Greendale.

Research Thanks To: MinotaurMan

Facts and Tidbits from this episode:

• Notable Dan Harmon quote “I think if God hands you an anus flag you have to fly it.”
• The first print of the Greendale flag in “Basic Rocket Science” was missing the gradient. Rhonda Robinson, the prop person, managed to get the new one silk screened within the day, and the shooting schedule was altered to rush the right flag to the set.
• The Bar in “Mixology Certification” was built for Happy Endings, another Sony show.
• Cooperative Calligraphy and Pillows and Blankets were conceived as money-saving episodes.
• The British show “Spaced” was an influence for Dan and the writers.
• Andy wrote Sound Engineer Robbie Sherman’s favorite episode of Malcom in the Middle “Reece’s Party”.

Research Thanks To: MinotaurMan