TV Guide Magazine Gets Funny, Centers Issue Around "Community" and Guest Editor Joel McHale

I'm really excited about this week's issue of TV Guide Magazine. It's The Funny Issue, featuring "guest editor" Joel McHale!

We had Joel do a one-on-one with "The Last Man on Earth" star Will Forte; I got to spend loads of time on the "Community" set, the writers room and even the editing bay with Dan Harmon; Damian Holbrook chatted with Tina Fey and Ellie Kemper about "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt"; David Hochman spent a day watching how E!'s "The Soup" gets made.

Also: cartoonist Dan Piraro ("Bizarro") did an original cartoon for us; Joel and his writers took over "Cheers & Jeers"; McHale and his "Soup" executive producer, KP Anderson, wrote a tongue-in-cheek primer on How to Get Yahoo Screen; Jack McBrayer, now of Adult Swim's "The Jack and Triumph Show," filled out our "Watch My Show" showrunner survey; Oriana Schwindt deconstructed the "Jane The Virgin" set and more.

Check it out, on newsstands now! And below, watch a video from our cover photo shoot of Joel, who answers a lot of questions -- including why "Community" is a lot like herpes.

COMIC-CON: How We Pulled Off This Year's "Greendale Forever: TV Guide Magazine's Tribute to Community" Panel

It was the Comic-Con panel that almost didn't happen.

Here's the back story: Every year TV Guide Magazine is given two slots by the San Diego Comic-Con International to organize panels. One of those panels is always "TV Guide Magazine's Fan Favorites," featuring a lineup of TV stars that elicit audience screams. Side note: Panelists this year included Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones), Misha Collins (Supernatural), Jordan Gavaris (Orphan Black), Sam Heughan (Outlander), John Noble (Sleepy Hollow), Colin O’Donoghue (Once Upon a Time), Retta (Parks and Recreation) and Aisha Tyler (Archer), moderated by our own Damian Holbrook.

But the other panel rotates. Last year, we organized The X-Files 20th Anniversary Panel, which was one of the hot tickets of Comic-Con. This year, we first thought about going the anniversary route again, and I looked into organizing Lost reunion. But the show had already committed to a reunion during Paley Fest, and everyone agreed that another one at Comic-Con seemed like too much.

That's when we started pursuing my other plan: Doing something with Community. I had moderated Community at Comic-Con twice before (until Chris Hardwick stole my gig in 2013) and also moderated the Community panel at this year's Paley Fest. There's a comfort level now with between the cast/producers and me, so I came up with two different ideas, depending on whether or not the show was renewed by NBC for a sixth season.

I assumed NBC and Sony would go ahead and organize the traditional Community show panel at Comic-Con. If that were to still happen, and the cast would be in town anyway, my idea involved a second Community panel, inspired by Jason Reitman's "Live Read" series at Film Independent. It would feature the cast having fun with the script from a procedural drama. (I thought an episode of "CSI Miami" might be fun, with Joel McHale in the David Caruso role).

But... I also had a back-up plan in mind: Should NBC not renew Community for the aforementioned #sixseasonsandamovie, then we'd turn our panel into "TV Guide Magazine's Farewell to Community." The good news: Harmon was on board to do something with us either way. That was the initial greenlight we needed to pursue this path.

All signs pointed to a Community renewal. NBC needed a few comedies to return, it's a co-owner of the show and lead producer Sony Pictures TV is known for crafty dealmaking to get things picked up. But then the news came down right before the May upfronts: The show was dead. On May 9, we told Comic-Con we would produce the panel "TV Guide Magazine Presents: A Farewell to Community."

I ran into Joel McHale at an upfront party the following week and ran the idea of the panel by him. He said he was game, depending on his schedule. But he was clearly not happy with the cancellation, and had an alternative idea for the panel's title that I can't even print here.

Still, it wasn't over yet. Even before NBC canceled the show, we knew Sony wouldn't give up on the show that easily. The studio immediately began hunting for a new home (Hulu was the hot contender for a while, although Sony's own Crackle portal seemed like a possibility.) By mid-June, we were starting to get nervous. Without a sure sense of the show's fate, the Community stars were taking a wait-and-see approach to the panel.

We weren't sure what to believe, especially once news reports revealed that a Hulu deal fell through. It wasn't looking good, but to be safe, we changed the name of the panel in the event that Community got an 11th hour renewal: "Greendale Forever: TV Guide Magazine's Tribute to Community."

Still, with no word, it was clear the show's cast was making other summer plans, and it didn't involve Comic-Con. Joel McHale had a commitment and couldn't attend. Ditto most of the other cast members. I began to once again brainstorm other ideas. Maybe we'd get Harmon to partake in our Reitman-esque live read idea, but with various comedians? Should we call other networks, like Adult Swim, to see if there was anything they might do with us? It was getting hairy. Comic-Con needed a panel description, and we didn't know what to say. I came up with this generic write-up, which I figured could work even if it was just Dan and one or two other stars:

Greendale Forever: TV Guide Magazine's Tribute to Community -- Will "six seasons and a movie" come true? Has Greendale Community College been saved? What happens next to Jeff Winger and the study group? Moderated by TV Guide Magazine executive editor Michael Schneider, join Community creator Dan Harmon, members of the cast and producers as they recap last season (including Dan's heralded return to the show) and discuss what the future holds for this fan favorite comedy.

I was strangely optimistic that it was going to work out. Perhaps that's because the Sony folks (chiefly, panel hero Allison McManus) kept assuring us that things looked good for a renewal, and that we should keep our hope alive. Turns out that was a smart move. On June 30 -- the very last day Sony still had options that they could exercise on the cast -- a deal with Yahoo Screen gave the show its long-awaited sixth season. (Read my recap of how the deal went down here.)

From there, things kicked into high gear. Sony was completely on board, and was cool with TV Guide Magazine continuing to handle the panel since we'd been this far down the road already. Sony (particularly, Allison McManus) did a fantastic job springing into action for us and getting the word out to the stars. They did a lot of heavy lifting at this point. Allison immediately sent out a formal invite letter to the show's stars, within 24 hours of the pickup!

Yahoo was also supportive, and put together a clip touting the show's rebirth. Exec producer Chris McKenna and stars Jim Rash and Gillian Jacobs also signed up. (Others couldn't change prior commitments or filming schedules.) That was already a decent panel. But we needed one more big presence on the panel. We needed Joel.

Harmon stepped in and personally asked McHale if he could do the panel. That's where both Dan and Joel also became heroes of the Community panel. McHale moved around some things in order to come to San Diego for a whirlwind few hours and attend our panel. It was the best news ever. It made the panel.

When Allison emailed me with the great Joel news, there was only one way to respond:

COOL COOL COOL!

The drama continued almost all the way up to the panel, as Joel hit a ton of traffic on the way into San Diego, finally arriving at the Convention Center with few minutes to spare. Writer/actor Dino Stamatopoulos, who plays Star-Burns, was a no-show in the green room but somehow made it back stage. At 2 p.m. last Thursday, I kicked off the panel with a TV Guide Magazine sizzle reel, followed by the Yahoo video. And then I began by butchering Dino's last name (even though I had been practicing it just an hour before! Nerves).

Then we got going, and it was another fun Community panel. We talked about how the show will be available on Yahoo (once a week), whether to expect a different kind of show (no) and whether there will be new cast members (TBD). Harmon also revealed that the show will probably become available post-Christmas. Meanwhile, highlights from the crowd included two convention attendees dressed as Greendale Human Beings.

It was a big success. So that's it, another TV Guide Magazine Comic-Con in the history books! Thanks so much to Allison McManus and Marianne Romano at Sony; my colleague Rich Sands, who's the key brain behind our Comic-Con operations; Chris DiIorio and Alyssa Wilkins at PMK-BNC for doing a bunch of the hard work logistically; and of course, Dan Harmon, Chris McKenna, Joel McHale, Jim Rash, Gillian Jacobs and Dino Stamatopoulos.

Some pics from the day:


Chris and Dan at the TV Guide Magazine yacht.


My Ballroom 20 onstage pass.


Waiting for the panel to start backstage

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Moderator Mike.


The panel (Flickr pic by Jarett Wieselman).


Joel takes a pic.


Group shot after the panel.

And then here's a video of the entire panel:



And here are the key write-ups of the panel:

Variety (Laura Prudhom)

The Guardian (Emma Lee Moss)

Entertainment Weekly (Darren Franich)

Mashable (Sandra Gonzalez)

The Celebrity Cafe (Brendan Morrow)

IGN (Matt Fowler)

Give Me My Remote (Marisa Roffman)

IndieWire (Ben Travers)

MIKE ON RADIO: Return of "Thrones," Yahoo! TV and Replacing Letterman

On Monday's edition of KCRW's Press Play with Madeleine Brand, we discussed HBO's hot streak (led by those amazing "Game of Thrones" ratings), plus all the intrigue surrounding who will replace David Letterman on CBS, and whether Yahoo! TV's move into original streaming content has a shot at success.

Listen below! My spot starts at 16 minutes in.

A Rebuttal to The Atlantic Wire: Good Design Doesn't Matter?

Yesterday in The Atlantic Wire, Rebecca Greenfield wrote:

One would think that with all the intense outrage over Yahoo's new logo that this is the most cared about logo to ever grace our eyes, but it's not. Just a few of years ago, the new Gap logo evoked more ire than it deserved. The anger got so extreme that the clothing company reverted back to the old look. This happens often: The public gets very upset over something that matters not at all. Maybe the new Yahoo design is "dull, uninspiring and limp," as one critic put it, but does it mean anything? No. But everyone gets all worked up because they have the facilities to do so in a somewhat astute (sounding) manner — a phenomenon known as the "Bikeshed Effect."

First off, I must admit, I was flattered that Franklin Avenue's critique was singled out. But...

I must say, Greenfield's post was a bit of an overreaction to the overreaction. We live in a social media world where everyone reacts with intense outrage to everything. Miley twerking. The boiling temperature in Southern California today. The latest crazy thing to come out of Pat Robertson's mouth. The cancellation of "Happy Endings." Do any of these things matter? Yes and no. They matter to people in the moment, and isn't that all that matters?

Everyone has something they care about. You may be pissed off at an NFL trade that I have no idea about. I may be pissed off at MTV for naming a song of the summer that is so clearly not the song of the summer because, you know what, that does matter to me. In my world, a world in which I grew up obsessing over the Billboard Hot 100 and even printing out my own Top 30 music chart every week (what? Yes, I didn't just collect TV Guides), stupid stuff like that matters. And am I going to voice my opinion? Yes, because I care that much. I really do. (And sorry MTV, but a terrible One Direction song that has just been released can not, under any logical argument, be considered the 2013 song of the summer.)

That brings us to the Yahoo! redesign. Why do I care so much? Well, I care about things like logos, typography, fonts and good graphic design. I've been obsessed with these things all my life. I even married a graphic designer. I grew up printing fake newspapers (yep, not just music charts and TV Guide collecting for this guy!) mostly because I loved the idea of how publications were laid out. I obsess over logos, enjoy looking at old examples and have even designed my own through the years (for my college radio station, among others). So when I see what I *know* to be a bad logo, and I consider the amount of time, money and energy that went into that bad logo, I want to vent. Thanks to social media, now I can. On this blog. On Twitter. I know Yahoo! has no interest in what I think. But at least I got it off my chest, and have been able to share in my disgust with others. (That's what social media is about, after all. A community.)

My AT&T U-verse email goes through Yahoo!, as does our Franklin Avenue email. Which means I have to look at that logo several times a day. And every time I look at that new logo, with its thin letters, I wonder why. Why a major new media company like Yahoo! would go for a logo that was so faint, so dull and so uninspiring. It especially looks faint next to the bolder, thicker (and yet, uncapitalized) logo of AT&T, an ancient company that has nonetheless been able to effectively rebrand itself.

Yahoo!'s original logo was not amazing, but it had a lot more character than this one. I could even hear the famous trademark yodel in my head when I glanced at the old logo. This one looks like a logo that might have been designed for a medium-sized city's public library.

So yes, I think logos mean something. Design means something, just as architecture means something and art means something. It may not be discussing "How Will Yahoo Increase CPM's Given Current Trends in Digital Advertising?" -- but that's an evergreen topic. It's not something that incites passion. I'M ANGRY OVER YAHOO'S CPMS. No. Not the same thing. With the logo, we're discussing something that just happened -- hence all the sudden pouring of haterade. It's a physical, noticeable change that you can put your arms around (in this case, to suffocate it to death.) And someone has to say something. That's why there are literary critics. Book critics. TV critics. Film critics. Art critics. Architecture critics. And yes, design critics. When a major corporation undergoes a major rebrand, and comes up with something so limp, I think they need to hear from us. They need to know that they can do better.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to check my Yahoo! email. While containing my anger.

A few more good reads on the topic:

Yahoo's Logo Reveals the Worst Aspects of the Engineering Mindset (Glog)
Yahoo’s new logo and the 30-day punchline (ARS Technica)

This Is Terrible: The New Yahoo! Logo

For the past month, Yahoo! has teased its users with the promise of a new logo. A different logo appeared daily over the last 30 days... and they were all pretty horrible. Many looked like Yahoo! execs were simply playing with the fonts pre-installed on their computers. Some were downright appalling. I began to wonder if Yahoo! was really going to change its logo, or if they were purposely showcasing horrible logo concepts as a joke.

My original theory? Yahoo! would end the month by sticking with its logo, using those horrible alternate options as proof that there was truly nothing better. Why mess with an iconic brand?

Well, they went and did it anyway. And came up with something dull, uninspiring and limp. This thin, inconsequential logo is the new Yahoo! stamp? Why bother? At least the old logo, for all its problems, conveyed originality and fun. This new one... well, it looks like something that someone came up with in 7 minutes.

I'm really tired of brands with perfectly fine logos going and blowing it up... for what? If you come up with a better logo, great. But it's gotta be amazing. And Yahoo! has come up with... a yawn.

Here's their original logo:



RELATED: A Rebuttal to The Atlantic Wire: Good Design Doesn't Matter?