don’t sense from just the audio of the podcast, or the sometimes bleak subject matter itself. Being there, and seeing the kind of trust and enthusiasm he has for the live audience, makes you realize how he’s able to pull off one of the most flabbergasting details about the podcast -- that they encourage random audience members to speak up whenever they want, often pull those audience members onto the stage, yet almost every time end up with a fascinating character who was well worth the time to speak with, which to my cynical ass is a miracle I can’t figure out how they get away with time and time again. But being at the show, you understand that Harmon and co. are creating a space where only these people feel the desire to speak up in the first place (well, for the most part), where the audience is packed with these kinds of people; in fact, here at the Chicago show, Harmon literally gave the floor to this incredible 16-year-old kid and “Harmon mini-me” fan who he had met before the show while hanging out in the lobby, there with his father so he could get in underage, who talked just like Harmon and even kind of looked like him, and this turned out to be one of the most charming things Harmon could’ve done, and what I thought was a real highlight of the entire national tour. It’s such a difficult combination to pull off, this earnestness yet cynicism about the world, which is the key to “Harmontown” being so unique and memorable; and it makes me understand better why “Community” fans love that show so passionately, and why the live audiences for this tour have mostly looked like rooms full of “Community” extras. Just like we currently look at people like Sid Caeser and Lucille Ball and consider them the people who “created all the rules” for the television that came after them, so too are we right this second watching the web’s Jackie Gleasons creating the rules for podcasts and YouTube channels that will still be guiding the medium 75 years from now; and “Harmontown” is absolutely one of these rule-defining shows, one of the first big-audience podcasts to both understand the kind of special content you can only present in this medium, and how to take advantage of the low-to-the-ground benefits from being a mobile little media team like this. I highly encourage you to become a fan soon, if you’ve never listened before. CJ
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