Joel McHale has dismissed his former Community co-star Chevy Chase’s criticism of the sitcom after he said it “wasn’t funny enough”.
Chase, who left the series in 2012 after four seasons, explained the reasons behind his departure on a recent episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast.
“I honestly felt the show wasn’t funny enough for me, ultimately,” Chase said. “I felt a little bit constrained. Everybody had their bits, and I thought they were all good. It just wasn’t hard-hitting enough for me.”
When asked about his character Pierce Hawthorne specifically, Chase added: “I didn’t mind the character. I just felt that it was… I felt happier being alone. I just didn’t want to be surrounded by that table, every day, with those people. It was too much.”
McHale, who played Jeff Winger across all six seasons of the show from 2009 to 2015, addressed the comments in an interview with People.
“He stopped hurting my feelings in 2009,” McHale said. “I was like, ‘Hey, no one was keeping you there.’ I mean, we weren’t sentenced to that show, It was like, ‘All right, you could have left if you really wanted that.’
“But yeah, you know Chevy. That’s Chevy being Chevy.”
He added: “I wrote about this in my book, but I was like, ‘Hey, the feeling’s mutual, bud.'”
In McHale’s 2016 memoir, Thanks For The Money: How To Use My Life Story To Become The Best Joel McHale You Can Be, the actor recalled various tense interactions with Chase while filming the sitcom, including alleged use of racist terms and jokes about sexual assault.
A Community spin-off film was announced last year, which will reunite original stars McHale, Danny Pudi, Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs, Jim Rash, Ken Jeong, Yvette Nicole Brown and Donald Glover.
Earlier this month, show creator Dan Harmon explained that development on the film had been left in limbo following the Hollywood strikes. The film was originally meant to be shot in Atlanta to accommodate Glover, but the strikes have since upended the scheduling.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about his concerns for the film, Harmon said: “By the time we can recoordinate, what are the odds that everyone’s schedule is going to once again align?”
He added: “I hate to say how terrified I am to do it wrong, because there’s a part of me that knows that that fear cannot possibly result in a good thing. And you’re not going to get anywhere doing an impression of what you think you should do or what you think they want, but I really don’t want to do it wrong, and it is truly terrifying.”
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