Screw blankets vs. pillows: there’s a real-life battle, this one between curmudgeonly white comedians, going on and it’s up to you to choose a side. In one corner, we have Dan Harmon, creator of “Community,” and in the other, Chevy Chase, who plays Pierce Hawthorne on the NBC sitcom. Here are the facts:
On the final day of shooting for season three, Chase stormed off the set before filming was completed. Soon after, at the wrap party, Harmon “got up and gave a ‘Fu*k you, Chevy’ speech in front of Chase and his wife and daughter, and encouraged the crew to join him in saying ‘fu*k you’ to the actor,” according to Deadline. Needless to say, Chase was humiliated and pissed (seriously, di*k move, Harmon), and he later called Harmon and left a very NSFW voicemail, which you can listen to here. Brief excerpt:
I don’t get talked to like that by anybody, certainly not in front of my wife and daughter, you goddamn asshole, alcoholic, fat sh*t. You’re gonna live to be about 57, if you’re lucky, the way you eat. I have nothing to say to you except you can suck my co*k. Is that clear?
Oh, but there’s more.
Maggie Furlong of the Huffington Post interviewed Chase a few days before he walked off the set, and she caught him in a particularly critical and cranky mood:
I have creative issues with this show. I always have. With my character, with how far you can take [Joel McHale’s] character…just to give him a long speech about the world at the end of every episode is so reminiscent. It’s like being relegated to hell and watching “Howdy Doody” for the rest of your life. It’s not particularly necessary, but that’s the way they do these things. I think it belies the very pretenses that his character, Jeff, has, that he’s giving these talks. They’re supposed to, in some way, be a little lesson to people who watch sitcoms…to that degree, I can’t stand sitcoms.
He makes a good point here, about “these talks.” But I don’t think it’s a problem with just “Community”; it’s a problem with all network sitcoms, which require a nice, tidy conclusion. The vibe that I got from this interview is that Chase wishes he had Danny DeVito’s role on “It’s Always Sunny,” a gig and show that rely heavily on improv.
I would say Alison stands out as a comedienne that nobody has seen yet. She’s also just a great actress. I’ve given her my advice, which is, “Don’t stay in television doing sitcoms. You’re very pretty, you’re young and I think that film is where you should be and that you could become a big movie star.” Her response was, “I just did two movies.” I didn’t even know about it [laughs], but I was glad to hear that.
But hey! At least he loves Alison. Maybe she can star in Fletch Won, when it’s finally made in 2041.
I’m not really gonna buck you all up a lot and say that this is the one, the one that tells it innovatively. It is what it is. I would like to see it go further. I think, if you know me and my humor over the years, you know that this is certainly not my kind of thing. I probably won’t be around that much longer, frankly.
And that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. If any of the main seven were to depart Greendale, Pierce would make the most sense. (He’s always been a bit of an outlier; he has funny moments, but his story doesn’t drive the show’s overall story as much as, say, Britta or Troy.) I just hope it’s not because of a childish pissing contest.
