Chevy Chase says doing Community show was a "Big Mistake"

Discussion in 'TV & Media' started by Dream, Sep 25, 2012.

  1. The Borgified Corpse

    The Borgified Corpse Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2000
    Location:
    Ouch! Forgotten already? You were just down ther
    Chevy Chase is over 70. The odds of him being very computer savy are pretty slim.

    Uh, dude, his catchphrase was "I'm Chevy Chase and you're not.":p

    That's a good one. But, personally, if I'm trying to sell a geek audience on the merits of the show, I start with "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons." I love the bit where they have to seduce the elf to get a pegasus.:guffaw:

    Just give it a few more years until Jon Hamm finally figures out how to have Baldwin killed and make it look like an accident.

    In fairness, I think that was part of the point, that Pierce was so impossibly generationally removed from the frame of reference of the rest of the cast, even the older characters like Jeff & Shirley, that it generated a lot of humor.
     
  2. The Borgified Corpse

    The Borgified Corpse Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2000
    Location:
    Ouch! Forgotten already? You were just down ther
    I don't see this comment as being so derrogatory towards the Community cast. While I would agree that the show is very innovative and the cast members are all really good on it, I don't think the style of their work is particularly revolutionary. They're basically occupying the same sitcom territory previously pioneered by the casts of 30 Rock & Arrested Development. I haven't seen them do anything as daring as the precise study in human awkwardness that is Alan Partridge.
     
  3. tighr

    tighr Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Sep 5, 2011
    Location:
    California
    Oh, absolutely. One of the best episodes of the show. The reason I pointed out Modern Warfare was because it was a season 1 episode, though.

    Coincidentally, its one of the ones I was referring to where its obvious Chase filmed his scenes seperately (another forum I'm on had someone who visited the set when they were filming the D&D episode, and Chase was nowhere to be found.) Even the scenes at the begining of the episode where he is sitting at the table were filmed separately (there are few, if any, in-camera shots of Chase with the other castmembers). I think he's repeatedly stormed offset. Harmon even mentioned in an interview that Chase ruined the season finale by not showing up for work the last day, and he had a planned scene for the end of the episode that had to be cut. Unfortunately for Dan Harmon, he was fired from the show shortly afterwards.
     
  4. doubleohfive

    doubleohfive Fleet Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 17, 2001
    Location:
    Hollywood, CA
    Harmon wasn't talking about the season finale being ruined by Chase. The episode Harmon was referring to was the video game episode, which aired the same night, which Harmon later discussed during his AMA on Reddit. The confusion is probably tied to the fact that the last few episodes aired on the same night as well as the fact that the scene in question would have been one of the last to be lensed during the production schedule. Here's the pertinent quote:

    And now Community fans online are trying to re-create the video game, and the lost scene Harmon described above (though the article also incorrectly describes the episode as the season finale):

    http://www.cinemablend.com/televisi...ates-Lost-Scene-From-Season-Finale-46290.html
     
  5. Delsaber

    Delsaber Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    May 13, 2001
    Location:
    Parts Unknown
    I remember reading somewhere that Patrick Stewart was on Dan Harmon's shortlist to play Pierce. That almost certainly would've turned out better for everyone. Even Chevy Chase, apparently, if this is really his attitude about the show.
     
  6. Locutus of Bored

    Locutus of Bored Yo, Dawg! I Heard You Like Avatars... In Memoriam

    Joined:
    Jul 5, 2004
    Location:
    Hiding with the Water Tribe
    Man, that would have been awesome.

    I know it's not going to happen, but it would be funny if they just replaced Chase with Stewart as Pierce and didn't even acknowledge the difference; just have everyone be oblivious to the change in appearance and accent except Abed (but no one takes him seriously when he brings it up). You could even have Abed say he looks like Patrick Stewart, Picard, or Professor Xavier so they think he's just mixing up reality and fantasy again.
     
  7. FPAlpha

    FPAlpha Vice Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 7, 2004
    Location:
    Mannheim, Germany
    Oooh.. Stewart would have been excellent! :techman:

    Coincidentally last nights episode of the Daily Show had him in a comedy bit.. totally was not expecting him on the show as anything but a guest to be interviewed and i laughed my ass off and clapped.. awesome!

    As to the replacement idea.. pretty good and has also been done on Roseanne way back in the 90s when they replaced one of the daughters with Sarah Chalke (of Scrubs fame later on) and when they went back to the original actress had quite a bit of fun pointing it out in a *winkwink* style.. was very funny.
     
  8. Locutus of Bored

    Locutus of Bored Yo, Dawg! I Heard You Like Avatars... In Memoriam

    Joined:
    Jul 5, 2004
    Location:
    Hiding with the Water Tribe
    Yeah, that was fantastic. I haven't laughed that hard in a while.
     
  9. gblews

    gblews Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 13, 2004
    Location:
    So. Cal.
    Remember that conversation Robert Downey Jr. had with Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder about acting? Downey said that Sean Penn had gone "full retard" in that movie and that was the reason Penn didn't get the Oscar. He was saying that Penn gave a great performance as a retarded person, but failed to get across the character's underlying "wisdom" -- the thing that would have made the character pitiable but endearing and noble rather than just pitiable.

    That is how I think of Chevy's performance as Pierce -- he went "full asshole", meaning he presented the asshole part of Pierce while failing to impart to the audience that Pierce really had a heart of gold deep down underneath it all while he was being an asshole. The only time we ever saw Pierce's softer side was when the dialogue was specifically written for Pierce to show that softer side.

    Chevy's performance also many times seemed to break the show's natural flow (for lack of a better term). It is as if Chevy never fully "got" his character or the show and consequentely never was able to fully mesh Pierce with the other characters and the episode's story. Chevy, through Pierce, always seemed to me to be looking at his castmates going, "Huh".

    The quotes attributed to him in the this thread seem to confirm that this is what was going on.