“Animal Control” star Joel McHale is keeping the vermin off his “Community” movie set. McHale told The Post that Chevy Chase is not welcome back for the upcoming Peacock movie adaptation.
“I don’t think he’s allowed to [return],” McHale said. “I don’t think it would happen. I don’t think [him returning] is a thing. Obviously his unceremonious departure in Season 4 pretty much did that in.”
McHale added: “I’m guessing if you asked him, he wouldn’t be interested” in starring in the movie.
The “Community” movie is the culmination of Dan Harmon’s preordained six-seasons-and-a-movie destiny for his NBC sitcom. Chase was part of most of it, but was fired from the series in 2013 after allegedly using a racist slur against co-star Donald Glover and butting heads with series creator Harmon.
Despite starring on the series for four years, Chase has been vocal about his own disdain for the comedy style of “Community,” saying that the series “wasn’t funny enough for me.”
“Community” debuted in 2009 set at a dysfunctional community college. Chase, McHale, Danny Pudi, Donald Glover, Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs, and Yvette Nicole Brown were the students, and Jim Rash and Ken Jeong were the school administrators. The series had five years on NBC before being saved by the short-lived Yahoo Screen for its sixth season. Fans on social media insisted on the “and a movie” piece, and NBCUniversal streaming platform Peacock gave them what they wanted with a 2022 green light.
The “Community” movie is now more real than it ever was, McHale says.
“I know that we’ve been saying stuff about it. But we have a budget. We are going to do it — it’s just getting the date and lining everybody up. It’s going to happen,” he told The Post. “I was 50/50, less than 50/50 [about the chances of it happening] a couple years ago. But now, it’s real. So we just have to get the dates down.”
And they’ve got one less series-regular calendar to cross-reference — again, not that Chase was beating down Harmon’s door either. McHale previously said during Michael Rosenbaum’s “Inside of You” podcast that the “feeling is mutual” about Chase’s “attitude” when he was on the series itself.
“He’s like, ‘I didn’t want to be around the table with those people.’ And like Gillian [Jacobs] would say, ‘[The] feeling’s mutual,’” McHale said. “This was not a prison sentence. We were not conscripted into a war. You were being paid a lot of money and getting free food all day long, so you could just walk away.”
At times, the verbal bouts turned physical. McHale says he dislocated Chase’s shoulder during one confrontation.
“It would get a little contentious. I got in trouble one time because I injured him. I dislocated his shoulder,” the comedian said.
Harmon said during a moderated New York Comic Con discussion (via Variety) in 2022 that Chase may not even be legally allowed back for the movie.
“I don’t even know if it’s legal for him to come back,” Harmon said. “That may be out of my hands. There may something I sign for with an insurance company.”
