A hundred thousand years ago, while we were still in production on For Catherine, I wrote a sitcom pilot that went nowhere.  The show was basically the funny version of Studio 60 (So basically 30 Rock) four years before there ever was such a thing as a Studio 60 (or a 30 Rock).  I didn’t exactly predict anything, though, because really it was just Sports Night set at a sitcom instead of a news show.

Anyway.

In that pilot I set up a joke that I intended to pay off 21 episodes later in the season finale.  The joke was pretty darn good, to be honest and I thought the boldness of the move would have me elected president in at least four nations without running.  But the motherfucking geniuses that run Community set up a joke in season 1 that they didn’t pay off until season 3. Holy. Fucking. Fuck.  I have my doubts that that was their actual intention initially, but I don’t care.  It’s brutally clever and expertly executed and it’s so good it makes me tear up a bit. 

I carry a little sadness with me that my pilot didn’t get picked up, because I worked hard on it and it was pretty good and I really believed in it, but then I watch Community and I feel okay about it all because my show was never going to be as good, and why would I want to make the second best comedy of all time?