TVSquad

At the same NBC TCA party where I spoke to Joel McHale, I also ran into Community creator Dan Harmon. Suffice to say, he's a chatty fellow. I started off by asking him how a first-time show runner like him prepares to be in front of a ballroom full of reporters, as he had been earlier in the day. His answer was pretty interesting: they get briefed and told we're a bitter lot.

Harmon's claim to fame before Community was that he helped create The Sarah Silverman Program for Comedy Central, and he was one of the few people who thinks that the network creative process has been as smooth, if not smoother, than the process for basic cable.

He also got extremely effusive about having Chevy Chase on his show; I was going to edit his epic response to my question about Chevy, but it's so loopy that I figured I'd just let it stand as is. Interview after the jump.

With the much-anticipated premiere of Community finally bowing tonight, I figured it was a good time to pull out the interview I did with Joel McHale when I encountered him at the NBC party during the TCA press tour. I didn't talk to McHale about his current NBC show, however; I talked to him about his previous NBC show.

Fans of the British sitcom The IT Crowd may remember that an American pilot was shot and the show was announced for NBC's midseason schedule a couple of years back, with McHale playing Roy and Richard Ayoade bringing his breakout role of Moss over from the original. Only, the pilot never saw the light of day, and a series was never picked up.

I asked McHale about what caused the show to be dropped and if he has any regrets over the show's flame-out. Then, as a person standing in front of the host of The Soup would tend to do, I asked him about what in the reality TV landscape gets him charged up. Interview is after the jump.

This is the second clip featuring Joel McHale today. I swear I didn't plan it that way. This one is from the new NBC fall sitcom Community, and you know what? It actually looks really funny. McHale plays a lawyer who loses his license and becomes a community college study group leader. Chevy Chase is an older student, and the show also features The Daily Show's John Oliver. It's from Sarah Silverman Program producer and writer Dan Harmon and Arrested Development directors Joe and Anthony Russo. (Video also here.)

Mark your calendars. Sarah Silverman's much-delayed Comedy Central show The Sarah Silverman Program will finally get its debut on February 1st at 10:30pm. A six-episode run of the program was scheduled to premiere this past summer - capitalizing on the positive press Silverman garnered for her concert film Jesus is Magic and her appearance in the documentary The Aristocrats. I suppose Comedy Central thought the market for clever, offensive comedy from beautiful women was saturated last summer so they waited to spring the goods on us in '07.

Silverman's television outing was conceived by Silverman along with Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab - names comedy fans may remember as being responsible for the failed Fox pilot turned cult favorite Heat Vision and Jack.