PASADENA – NBC held its annual Summer Press Day on Wednesday (April 18) in Pasadena.
With a room full of reporters, and panel time already set aside for “Community,” surely this would have been a super opportunity to slip in a big announcement about a fourth season renewal, right?
No dice. No announcement came or appears to be immediately forthcoming.
Of course, Joel McHale and co-stars Yvette Nicole Brown and Oscar Winner Jim Rash were asked if they’d heard anything.
“Oh yeah. We got renewed!” McHale jokes. “They didn’t tell you? They told us a while ago.”
Please note, just in case “McHale jokes” didn’t make it clear, that McHale was joking.
“We won’t know until they tell us and they haven’t told us anything,” Brown said, pointing to NBC’s upfront presentation a month from new as the likely date for notification.
McHale made clear that he’s not viewing the lack of official word as a negative, noting, “None of the comedies have been picked up yet, so either NBC’s going with zero comedies…”
The other hot button issue that journalist tip-toed around for a while was the recent war of words and voicemails between series creator Dan Harmon and Chevy Chase.
“The update is that there are four more voicemails coming out and that’ll make it a whole series,” McHale cracked.
Asked about Chase’s comments that he doesn’t find “Community” funny, McHale graciously explained, “He says that every day. And we can just say, “Well, it’s not ‘Karate Dog’…”
Despite the apparent tension and rampant baseless speculation about Chase’s future on “Community,” McHale remained positive.
“Those voicemails, he obviously wasn’t very happy, but he loves the cast and my guess is that he will be back if we’re back,” he said. “Let’s get the pick-up and then we’ll see what happens.”
“Community” is new this Thursday at 8 p.m. on NBC.