On the heels of last week’s drama showrunners panel, comes the comedy showrunner panel, inevitably a bit funnier and a bit more personal than the drama kaffeeklatsch. Community’s Dan Harmon, Modern Family’s Steve Levitan, The Big C’s Jenny Bicks, Big Bang Theory’s Bill Prady, Nurse Jackie’s Liz Brizius, and Parks and Rec’s Mike Schur kick things off by talking about Charlie Sheen, but get into much else, from network notes to Comic-Con to staying politics free to the Modern Family kiss controversy to showrunner as celebrity fairly quickly. Starting around the 26-minute mark, the group gets to chatting about social media (which they circle back to a number of times through out), and Harmon, a prodigious tweeter, goes off on a very inspired rant about the social-networking tool. He begins by confessing that he lost his virginity to a girl he met in a chat room, covers everything from “I thrive on the adoration of strangers” to his conscious choice to balance out positive and negative tweets, and ends with the impassioned observation that some viewers “think that television is a utility, like a water tap. And they sip it and they’re like, that’s not to my liking. But someone made that. It’s not a government utility, and it’s dangerous to think like that. Think to yourself, you could make something too.” Oh, also, NBC suggested he not make the Community Dungeons and Dragons episode.
The video isn’t embeddable yet, but you can watch it here.
