Now that the practice of digging up controversial public figures’ dirty laundry has become a commonplace part of daily American life, we can all expect to see many more reiterations of the truth that, sometimes, people are idiots before they age and mature and leave those things behind. Sometimes that moment arrives later in life for some than others, however, which is probably going to lead to no shortage of controversy in the near future.
On the heels of James Gunn’s firing from Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise last week, after reprehensible Twitter moist boy Mike Cernovich decided to use Gunn’s Troma-style Twitter jokes about pedophilia and rape to end his Disney career, Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon has once again found himself at the center of a public storm. Over the weekend, a 2009 pilot that Harmon shot and starred in was rediscovered on Channel 101, where it became the subject of no shortage of controversy due to its depiction of Harmon sneaking into a house and pantomiming the rape of a baby doll.
Now, in addition to already deleting his Twitter account, Harmon issued a public statement regarding the video: “In 2009, I made a ‘pilot’ which strove to parody the series ‘Dexter’ and only succeeded in offending. I quickly realized the content was way too distasteful and took the video down immediately. Nobody should ever have to see what you saw and for that, I sincerely apologize.”
Additionally, Adult Swim (which has more or less made Rick and Morty the center of its present-day identity) commented on the now-deleted video. Per Indiewire, the network remarked that “At Adult Swim, we seek out and encourage creative freedom and look to push the envelope in many ways, particularly around comedy. The offensive content of Dan’s 2009 video that recently surfaced demonstrates poor judgement and does not reflect the type of content we seek out. Dan recognized his mistake at the time and has apologized. He understands there is no place for this type of content here at Adult Swim.”
It probably won’t be the last time that Harmon gets under people’s skin, but hey, that’s what made him a household name in the first place.
