Splitsider

Vulture caught up with Chevy Chase this weekend and asked him very point blank questions about Community. Chase obviously didn't want to talk about, but luckily he did talk about it, albeit fairly dickishly:

I don't want to talk about that. Why would I? We don't know if the show has been picked up. Even if it had been picked up, I haven't made a deal. I have to go through all that stuff before I can give you my opinion on the character. It's not easy to answer that, because I haven't made my deal yet.

When asked what he doesn't like about being on the [...]

Chevy Chase has a reputation as kind of, well, an asshole. The latest example of this comes from his feud with Community creator Dan Harmon, in which he left him a voicemail in which he insulted Harmon's writing and predicted that he would die young, amongst other unpleasantries. And now over at Gawker, they've gathered up all of the available anecdotes about Chevy's bad behavior over the years. For example, did you know Chevy slapped Rob Heubel "offensively hard" across the face when Heubel introduced himself to him backstage at UCB, seemingly for no reason? Not exactly how most proffered hands are met.

Despite the improving ratings, things aren't all paintballs and imaginariums in the world of Community. Series creator Dan Harmon and Chevy Chase are in the middle of a relatively public feud, one that involved Chevy walking off set on the last day of shooting, Harmon insulting him in a speech during the wrap party in front of his family, and Chase leaving an expletive-filled voicemail for Harmon that Harmon then played in front of an audience at a show in LA. It's a mess!

Both Harmon and Chase have reputations for being difficult to work with, so it's not entirely surprising that the two would butt heads [...]

One of the best things about this time of year is getting to watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Of all the Christmas movies out there, it’s definitely my favorite. Watching this third installment of the Griswold family was something of a tradition for the Worcester family, and even after countless viewings, it still makes me laugh out loud every year.

Chevy Chase is at the top of his game and the supporting cast is note perfect. Everything comes together flawlessly in this movie, easily making it the best of the Vacation franchise. For more detail on that, please consult my fellow Splitsider contributor Alden Ford.

To properly show [...]

Lost Roles is a weekly column exploring what might have been in TV and film comedy, taking a different comedian, writer, or work each week and examining the casting possibilities and career moves that almost came to be. This week: the nixed casting possibilities for the 1978 movie Animal House.

It's difficult to put into perspective how huge a pop cultural event the release of National Lampoon's Animal House was in the summer of 1978. While there was a big hubbub made over The Hangover two years ago when it became the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time; when inflation is factored in, that film pales in comparison [...]

Dan Harmon took to his Tumblr last night to address the public feud he and Chevy Chase got into, which involved Chevy walking off set, Harmon insulting him in front of his family at the wrap party, Chevy leaving Harmon an angry voicemail, and then Harmon playing said voicemail to audience members at a show in LA. And Harmon feels terrible about that last part: It was in that venue, months ago, that I made the horrible, childish, self-obsessed, unaware, naive and unprofessional decision to play someone’s voicemail to me. He didn’t intend for 150 people to listen and giggle at it, and I didn’t intend for [...]

Dan Aykroyd announced on his Facebook page last night that he and Chevy Chase are "about to start work on a script concept for a comedy movie." He didn't say anything else about, you know, what the concept is, but as long as it isn't "Chevy Chase stealing Bill Murray's identity and face and making Ghostbusters 3," I'm on board. On second thought, Chevy Chase stealing Bill Murray's face to make Ghostbusters 3 sounds like it would definitely be entertaining. Kind of a Ghostbusters meets Face/Off meets Old Dogs sort of thing.

This week marks the 25th anniversary of Three Amigos, one of the best-regarded comedies of the 1980's and one that brought together a half-dozen of the greatest comedic minds going at the time. Three Amigos starred Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Martin Short, was written by Steve Martin, Lorne Michaels, and Randy Newman (who also composed the music and did the voice of the Singing Bush), and was directed by John Landis, who even hired a pre-SNL Phil Hartman and Jon Lovitz for supporting roles. Few comedies can boast a team that is so remarkable and that made such a significant mark on comedy, both separately and together. The [...]

Community fans wondering why the show hasn't yet shown Jeff's dad have their answer. Dan Harmon admits in this interview that he's been pushing back that storyline "in the hope that some miracle will happen" and Bill Murray will deign to play the role. I guess the whole Chevy Chase-Bill Murray feud makes this casting pretty improbable, but man, how great would that be?

Harmon goes on to talk about possible spinoffs and plotlines once the characters have graduated from Greendale, as well as his respect for obsessive online viewers of the show. "I do try many times a season to put Alison [Brie] in a [...]

Oh, Jesus. Here's a newly leaked voicemail from Chevy Chase to Community creator Dan Harmon in which he goes on at length about how the show sucks and can only be saved by them leaving in all of his hilarious on-set ad libs. At least I think it's a voicemail — at one point you can hear Harmon sort-of respond to Chevy, but he isn't acknowledged. It's not clear if this is another part of a voicemail played by Harmon at the Harmontown show in LA or if it's something different entirely. It is over a year old, however, so it's clear that there's been tension between the [...]

TMZ is reporting that in the public fight between Dan Harmon and Chevy Chase, a big chunk of Community staffers have taken Chevy's side: Now, sources who work on the show tell us … "What Dan Harmon did was f**ked up … Chevy is a pleasure to work with."

We're told … many people on set feel the "dispute" that took place between the two men during the taping of the season finale was blown out of proportion by Harmon … because Chevy was "very respectful." …

One source tells us, "What Dan did was embarassing and left a sour taste in all of our mouths … [...]

In the 1970s and 1980s, Warner Bros. did not take great care with its animation legacy. The studio spit out a new, clumsily assembled “special” for every remotely notable occasion, with a lack of care and inventiveness that would have shamed Bob Hope. The programs were comprised of 75 percent recycled old cartoons, strung together with unfunny, ugly looking new animation that contained none of the craft and anarchic humor of the source material.

Not so with the The Looney Tunes 50th Anniversary Special. Produced in 1986 to mark the titular occasion (and loosely tied to a Museum of Modern Art retrospective), it too made heavy use of classic [...]

Before Community aired its first episode in 2009, Joel McHale was the guy from The Soup, known to most only as "The Guy from The Soup"; Gillian Jacobs was the girl who had a topless scene in Choke; Alison Brie was the rarely-seen Trudy on Mad Men; Donald Glover was part of a comedy troupe that made the "bro rape" video; Yvette Nicole Brown was a movie theater manager on Nickelodeon's Drake & Josh; Danny Pudi was the Token Indian in movies like Road Trip: Beer Pong; and Chevy Chase was a has-been.

Now, on the morning/afternoon of their 59th episode together — their last until March? April? May? [...]