Community at the 2010 PaleyFest

For NBC’s Freshmen comedy, Community, the evening at the Paley Festival mimicked what must go on after a take. Cast members in attendance included: Donald Glover, Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Ken Jeong and Chevy Chase. As the elder statesmen of the cast, Chase’s humor dominated much of the panel (early on he fell backward off his chair, before going on to mimic Jeong as he talked and disrupting the panel in other ways.)

Joel McHale & Chevy Chase at Community's Paley Fest event / Wireimage

The clip from the vault of the Center’s collection featured Chevy Chase in an interview from the 1991. While 1991 doesn’t seem that far away, the difference in Chase’s appearance helped to cement his new status as Pierce in Community.

Before the cast arrived, the audience was treated to the episode “Phyiscal Education”, which featured a series of scenes with McHale in very short shorts or none at all. As the panel unfolded, much was said about those scenes, as well as the tag with Abed and Troy playing Bert and Ernie.

McHale first talked about the naked scenes, and how he had to prepare for it—shaving and a diet of eggs for two weeks. Donald Glover chimed in that the scenes for all those on set were either too much or not enough, depending on who you ask.

His kiss with the coach was better than a previous male kissing experience he’d had, but McHale did add that it’s odd to kiss a person with stubble.

The show’s genesis came from executive producer Dan Harmon’s own community college experience in his thirties. One of his classes, biology, a mixture of kids working full time jobs and going to school, suggested that they start a study group. Eventually, they bonded while studying for one exam. Jeff Winger (McHale) was born from those study sessions and Harmon’s old attitude.

After this, Chase did one of his more distracting features by falling backwards before Ken Jeong could discuss how he came to the project (he wasn’t in the pilot, but came in after the show had built a solid fanbase).

The moderator (a writer from EW) then asked about how the producers thought about the previous track record for shows in college settings.

Donald Glover & Ken Jeong at Community's Paley Fest event / Wireimage

As the topic shifted to the casting process, the executives were wary about answering the question for fear of Chase’s antics, but they went on to discuss the ways in which the other pilots being cast diminished the talent pool. When discussing how Glover was cast, Glover piped in by saying that “Nick Cannon was busy,” before moving into a long discussion about Troy as a Woody Harrelson lunk before morphing into what Troy is now on the show. Harmon spent more than five minutes talking about how Glover’s Troy was created as a color-blind character before he was cast. The discussion yielded more than a few comments on how changing Troy to meet Glover wasn’t going to be achieved by adding “yo yo yo” to the end of his lines. Harmon explained his attention to creating color-blind show thanks to this mother’s constant work to make him politically correct. It made him hyper aware of the issues.

The cast went into jokes about how to make Troy more black as a character, which included Glover commenting about Reverend Run being his father and selling Britta (which got a laugh at of the whole room). Harmon then went on to discuss another show he had written and the long line of African-American men who went to audition for a role.

Gillian Jacobs was also glad to be in attendance tonight, since none of the women from the show were present at the Fall Preview Party in September. Alison Brie, Danny Purdi and Yvette Nicole Brown were off filming a scene with Jim Rash (Dean Helton), but they sent along their regards. As the panel went on, she described how working on this show is her graduate school for work as a comedienne, especially given her Julliard training (and years playing hookers). There was also a discussion about her character’s genesis. Jacobs had been in upstate New York at the start of pilot season and a friend had told her of a role she’d be perfect for. Jacobs had no access to anything but came to LA and tested for the role. Once she had the part, she called her friend back, only to learn that Britta was the part her friend said was perfect for her.

Once Ken Jeong was cast as Senor Chang, Glover commented, “I’ve seen that guy naked” (referring to his role in The Hangover) before the cast started to praise that film. That transitioned into Jeong discussing Glover’s off camera characters that keep the cast entertained between takes. Harmon, following that, went on to say that the best thing he could do was to “write mediocre crap and send it down to the set.”

Producers Dan Harmon & Garrett Donovan at Community's Paley Fest event / Wireimage

Fishtailing from that, Glover discussed his transition from YouTube to a writer to being on this show. The executive producers have been known now to tell Glover to “go crazy” at some moments because of the wealth of talent he has from various forms of work he’s done.

When Chase was finally given a chance to talk, he likened the cast to parts of a Home Depot before McHale said “you’ve never been to Home Depot.” It then devolved into the bizarre and offensive things that Chase has said to the cast (who seem to be very pleased with being called anything offensive because it’s from Chase). McHale later started to compare Chase to Nolan Ryan, in the sense that both are alive and that his comedy is like the hardest pitch Ryan would throw.

Glover and McHale, shortly after this, went into a series of purported excerpts from any stories that Chase will tell onset.

From the conversation between the cast, and the executives who are all responsible for the show’s look, it’s apparent that the cast appreciates having great writing behind them, and the cast has a similar appreciation for the material as presented to them. Ad-libbing, it seems, isn’t something that the cast does on a regular basis, because of the attention the writers pay to the actors.

As the cast started to discuss upcoming episodes, they were eager to talk about a future episode that will mimic a 22-minute action movie. The production value of the episode, Harmon noted, is also shaping the rest of the episodes left to be shot.

Producer Anthony Russo & Gillian Jacobs at Community's Paley Fest event / Wireimage

The first fan question asked was about the Greendale Human Being. Harmon said that the man in the suit is not Pudi’s Abed and then went on to discuss a scene that ended up on the cutting room floor about Abed popping up when the Human Being was delivering Valentines.

The cast feeds off each other, it’s apparent, as the members present riffed off each other. Glover mentioned one moment where Annie mimicked a train before deciding that Troy would say it was weird. McHale revealed that more about Senor Chang will be come to light, especially with respect to why he’s so cruel to everyone in class.

Another question was asked about Abed’s social mannerisms and if those are supposed to be emblematic of the character having Asperser’s Syndrome. Harmon went on to say that Abed is most like the writer and that he is a god amongst the characters because of his ability to channel what some of the audience thinks about the characters (as well as the writers).

Plenty of other tidbits were revealed, but so many were jokes between the cast that it’s more than apparent that the show is well deserving of another season.

Community airs Thursday at 8/7c on NBC.