Amarsir

Still wouldn't explain where the ingredients came from. Day 1 he was wearing a checkered shirt, including when he originally sampled their menu. In the second half of the day he had a t-shirt over it. Day 2 he had a white shirt on. When Fuji was cooking the burger, Marcus was standing next to him wearing white. Identical outfits and positions to the "much later" conversation about who is in charge of the menu. Now sure, white shirts are an easy thing to have several of. Maybe Marcus arrived, talked with the guys for 5 hours, ate the frozen burgers in the checkered shirt, put on a t-shirt over the checkered shirt, then called Fuji who came over with the fresh ground beef and spices he generally travels with. Then Marcus, deciding he wanted to keep his new t-shirt clean, took off both shirts to put on one identical to the one he'd wear the next day. With that on he'd watch Fuji arrange a burger, then taste it. Then Marcus took it off, put back on the original outfit to sit down and make an offer. Then came back in the next day in a different white shirt to go back in the kitchen where Fuji would again be manipulating burgers in the same place to "create a new menu". I guess that's possible. I just think it's more likely they played the clips out of order.

Speaking of these two things, where did Fuji get his original ingredients from? The show made it seem like they called him up, it was a 5 minute drive, and then the genius chef went into the kitchen and whipped up the world's best burger. From what? The fresh beef and spices the kitchen apparently didn't use? Checking again just now, Marcus was wearing a different shirt during the cooking scene. Then went back to the previous one in the subsequent discussion about costs and when he made his offer. So they clearly manipulated the order to make it look like Fuji's recipe convinced Marcus to make the deal, when in fact he didn't cook anything at all until after the disorganized shed nonsense. It feels like a more honest documenting of what happened is that Marcus decided he wanted to own a burger chain and was convinced to use this location because of the show. Then everything we saw was filling in the gaps.

In episodes 1-11 there's not even a hint of it. You'd never know. In ep 12 Annie shows an unhealthy draw to Jeff, and then Paget Brewster's character shuts it down. (And this was a minor plot point.) And then the finale they kiss and in so doing establish that they are NOT a suitable couple. So S6 didn't pretend J/A doesn't exist, but did stomp on the idea and say "no." Personally I think it's the best way to handle the history without indulging it, but if you're trying to forget it was ever a thing you'll be disappointed. Yeah, that was an odd choice. I don't really care if a show uses profanity, but it has to be true to itself. If they wanted to swear and then hang a 4th wall lantern on it because NBC is gone, then that would be Community. Randomly doing it because the actors felt like it is just weird.

Does Marcus have any marketing chops? (Other than getting the names of his businesses on CNBC I mean.) Can anyone remember an episode that was about an ad campaign or generating publicity other than word-of-mouth? I ask because let's grant that the place looks great and the burgers do taste better now. He raised prices and added seats to a place that was nearly empty. Is he just counting on people to wander by and fall in love? By the way, for a guy who's fighting in court for the right to a frozen burger line, Marcus seems down on frozen patties. I wonder if he'd be saying the same thing if Stein Meats had come through and he was able to source the Brooklyn Burger to this place.

100% on board with Sarah's questions this week. It seemed like there were a lot of business changes actually made, but they were crammed in 15% of the show time and the rest annoyed me. And I also don't understand why this was trumpeted as having "national" potential, while the vastly more successful Shuler's BBQ wasn't. I'd be curious to see how well the baked potatoes turn out. Wendy's proves it can be done on the lower end, and we know a Red Robin style of casual dining can do it. Can it fit with the Burger-in-a-basket concept and is it worth the overhead the way they do it?

Well that's a finale. I'm actually a little speechless just yet.

Bit of a lackluster episode for me. Willie Robertson was probably about as good as a "reality tv" star could be, but that means unintrusive and nothing more. They could have just used a cardboard cutout of him for the same effect. The duet was fine, but not as good as I'd hope for a duet between Mick Jagger and Neil Diamond. I think that might partly be the choice of accompanyment Linda and Laura chose, and partly be because I so fondly remember the Neil/Kanye duo from last season. It wasn't bad, but just felt a little mechanical. Field reporter was great, and a nice choice of video. (Thanks for identifying it @Thog.) Scenes from a hat were good too, but I thought the "ruin the moment" ones dragged on a little. I wanted another idea to keep it moving. And Helping Hands ... Well what can we say about that game that hasn't been said a hundred times already?

https://youtu.be/3pV4vceOajQ?t=15s I thought we saw a few, but agreed it was certainly not the focus. I don't get it either. If he was going to fold it in, 25% won't cut it. (I suspect that's part of the reason he bought out Key West Key Lime Pies, so he could merge with fewer issues.) Maybe he thought the build-your-own angle was unique enough that he could take something from it? (And then when it wasn't, he was already in.)

I'm reminded of the Harmon quote that he named the show "Community", not "Community College". I get what you're saying, and this certainly wouldn't be the first show to have gone off the rails because they couldn't maintain material for the premise. But I don't know how much that was ever in the cards, as opposed to just being a jumping off point. The first season was centered around Spanish class because that's all they had. As tertiary characters came in, the school got fleshed out, and their influence expanded we saw the world of the show broaden more and more. No doubt there's a lot of comedy to be written about school administration, but I'm not sure that's what Community was ever going to be. Instead it's more creative, for better or worse. And I've always liked that riskier side. But I get it. This isn't what was presented when the show premiered back in 2009.

I've seen build-your-own-cupcakes before. Sugar Rush in Red Bank, NJ comes to mind. (They seemed to do good business but If they watch this episode they could probably benefit from Marcus's layout suggestion.) Who among us is surprised that Marcus wants yet another "make it in front of you" place? But even more than the Greek franchise this seemed like a concept where he'd be better off starting from scratch. (Or copy Sugar Rush. They also do custom filling and have a list of suggested combinations for indecisive people.) I didn't think Tonnie was that bad, compared to some of the past tyrants we've seen. Yeah he was being obtuse about a lot of stuff but no rage. Heck, Marcus seemed like the one with the shorter temper despite what I'm sure were edits around that. That said, lots of issues to potentially walk away from. I'll bet you that within a year Tonnie will have started on another location, with or without Marcus' approval. Last, I got the impression that store was closed for a while. There was no mention of renovation time, the wife seemed like she was tired of waiting and the sister like she hadn't seen Marcus in ages. And the mother didn't get paid back until opening, meaning Marcus held back on his check that long. That's not surprising, especially given the handshake deal nature. But it sheds some light on some deals that haven't gone as well in the past and when the check actually get deposited.

We don't know them yet, but rushing/forcing it is worse. For example Hickey took a lot of focus in S5 and it was a problem. So they participate while occasionally getting a line indicating that they're still getting up to speed on the group. I think that's as good as we can hope for, considering that cast leaving wasn't something the show chose to have happen.What was Abed's line at the beginning? "The sooner you forget I'm here the sooner I cease to become a factor" or something like that. I didn't realize it was meta at the time. He gets a lot of episodes though so I don't mind. My take on the Jeff/Annie was that Frankie was the voice of reason, seeing that something between them as we all have and shutting it down. Possibly meta as well.

But that would be second, I think. First cousins are when your parents are siblings. Second cousin is grandparents. So a grandmother being great aunt would mean they're second. (I think. I'm also not clear what the phrase "once removed" means.)

I loved this episode. Maybe more than last week. Agreed, the feel was very different from other documentary episodes. In fact after the first third you could forget Abed was there. He wasn't the focus, just a mechanism for showing the characters in a "backstage" sort of way. The whole effort - including the way lighting, makeup, and handheld cam were used - gave me the first impression that there wasn't much script to it. But in retrospect that's not true at all. There's a very tightly written script with details flowing smoothly into each other and escalating hints into the reveal. Plus a nice save by Chang - who, like everyone in this episode, was showing a side we haven't seen and yet true to character. I got to wondering what the former characters would have done were they here for this episode. Shirley I can easily see making friends and saying that her competitiveness is "the worst" that comes out in the group. Pierce something similar, leaning on his old business skills to get along. But I don't know what Troy would have done. He'd be good for jokes but what's his backstage personality and what's his better self when being the ideal guests?

And yet the whole premise of the show relies on us accepting monarchy. I don't know if that's irony or a commentary on how willing we still are to be ruled. But it's a little odd how easily we go "oh he'd be a good king".

Barbara recently did an AMA on reddit and was quite funny there as well. Real personality even in brief question/answer format: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36mwvs/i_am_barbara_corcoran_of_abcs_shark_tank_prior_to/

The point is not that it's a positive, but that if you have to take money out that's more accountable. Every investor would prefer the money stays in the business for growth. But in the case where you need money to live on, a disbursement will make potential investors more reassured that their money isn't going into your pocket. As for tax consideration you're correct. But assuming that some money was used to start the business you can call it a "return of capital" instead of a dividend and thereby not pay any personal taxes until that's run down.

Reddit seems to have determined the answer: Of course that's not canon, so if Harmon wanted to revisit (which I don't expect) it could be almost anyone.

Here's the (probably mock-up) box: and it looks like they will label the other lines "Cake Stuffins and "Muffin Stuffins", the last of which I can only imagine is purely for the name. (What would you put inside a muffin?) I'm also not confident they can go big with the $6 a box price, but I can see certain supermarkets carrying it.

I noticed that printed mats showed up in the "business is booming, we have new products" section. Not that Marcus edits the footage or even knows what goes into the montage, but there's a little conflict between condemning an investment and bragging about the product that results from it. So I actually don't think it was that much of a sticking point between them. Yes, Marcus wants to be consulted about $80,000 purchases (esp via debt). But I'm not sure how many purchase orders he can actually get when he doesn't have a sample product to show yet. Point being that it's a protocol breech, but Marcus puts up with so much crap from much worse people that I don't see anything Scott did crossing that line.

Well you can structure a deal however you want (within boundaries). For example, in the Skullduggery fiasco Marcus accepted minority stake but insisted on control over finances. This turned out to be the sticking point for the family. (Which in turn saved Marcus from what would have been a terrible experience.) That just would have been what they put in writing. Ownership % controls how you split the profits, but doesn't preclude other rules being contractually spelled out. That said, Marcus usually says he's "100% in charge" just for the week or month of transition. Clearly he likes to be consulted on major changes, but he wants owners to be active managers too. Maybe. I could believe he has the expertise to build really customized high-end drum kits that might sell at a premium. But he doesn't have workflow or sales, and probably not material inventory or machinery. If it was that easy to turn a profit selling sets on his own then I doubt the company would have had problems in the first place.

I had the exact same thought. I wonder if Marcus is reluctant to admit his initial assessment was wrong, or if he just gets fooled by the act each time. At least he's not putting any more money in, but that was a nightmare. Good to see the salon and pie businesses doing well. I noticed the update didn't particularly mention any profits coming from that product line. Apparently Erika Cole by Raquel isn't bringing a lot of Dollar Cash by US Mint. Also I'm curious what the structure is on this new money Marcus puts in. For Key Lime he'd already bought them out anyway so it's his business but how's Coopersberg working? Is it debt? More equity? Charitable contribution?

This was hilarious. Although I wouldn't have said that a return to paintball was a good idea, the approach and handling was very well done. This felt like a return to old form, yet evolved to a new perspective. Best episode of the season. Oh is that what they were doing? Very cool, I didn't get that. By the way, unless I'm mistaken we didn't actually see who the "Silver Ballz" shooter was. Lapari was shooting green. That leaves it open for a followup.

Based on my understanding I'd say "no" for inline skates, and "maybe but probably not" for 2x2 ones. You need perfectly vertical contact to maintain a constant radius, and any activity that tilts the wheels will ruin that. Skateboards only work because the 4 wheels stay in contact while the board swivels above them.

That's true, but if it turns out that one of their first purchases after removing common core is $2.5 million on "Math Buddy", that would probably convince people to go running right back. I watched the MIx Bikini segment from season 3. (Episode 14, right before the far more memorable Billy Blanks Jr segment.) They were a complete mess right from go. No sales. Didn't know what percentage they were even asking for (one said 5%, the other 10%). No clear idea what direction they wanted to go in. (Kiosk vs online.) Most of the sharks went out fast, but Barbara liked the idea so she made an offer. (This kind of thing may be why she has a reputation with other sharks for being more open to crazy ideas.)

That's how I remember it too. Of note: Shark Tank launched in Australia this year, and one of the episodes featured an inventor with the "Caseboard", an electric skateboard that folds up to business case size. He got a deal and a lot of the talk was about getting the rights to sell it in America. (That happens a lot on their show, for obvious reasons.) So that's probably the best possible compact answer. But public safety laws aside, I don't know who's too urban to use a car, traveling far enough it's not easier to just walk, and wouldn't rather use public transportation. Bikes seem the most like existing competition, but those have a major selling point via health benefits.