His new voicemail will do little to end his fight with “Community” creator Dan Harmon. (Araya Diaz/WireImage)
Chevy Chase does not hold back his feelings about his NBC sitcom “Community” in a new voicemail message leaked online today.
“It’s just a [bleeping] mediocre sitcom,” Chase says in an audio clip attained by the Web site Celebuzz. “I want people to laugh and this isn’t funny. It ain’t funny to me because I’m 67-years-old and I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve been making a lot of people laugh — a lot better than this.”
The voicemail was left for Dan Harmon, the creator of the sitcom who Chase has been feuding with ever since the show’s season three wrap party in 2011. At the party, Harmon reportedly led a chant of “[Bleep] you, Chevy” in front of the show’s cast and crew, as well as Chase’s family. Harmon was reportedly upset at Chase for having walked off set on one of the final days of shooting.
“I don’t get talked to like that in front of anybody, certainly not in front of my wife and daughter,” Chase tells the show runner in a voicemail, which Harmon later played in front of an audience leading to its leak online last week.
Chase goes on to call a script “an abomination” and adds “your writing is getting worse and worse.” Chase also called Harmon a “fat [bleep]” and a “stinko.”
After the voicemail went public, Chase said that leaving it was “the right thing to do … at the time.” Meanwhile, Harmon apologized for having made the message public.
CHEVY CHASE SAYS LEAVING ANGRY VOICEMAIL FOR ‘COMMUNITY’ CREATOR WAS ‘THE RIGHT THING TO DO’
This new voicemail from Chase could re-open the squabble. The newly obtained message reveals Chase complaining about the show’s editing, and about the amount of attention being given in an episode to characters played by Joel McHale and Gillian Jacobs.
“I’m doing [bleep] in that [bleeping] place in that wheelchair and it’s cut down, down, down, down. So it’s what? So people can following the [bleeping] story between Joel and Gillian and love affairs and kissing? Come on, man! You’re missing the [bleeping] point!” says Chase. “I mean, this is not my kind of comedy. I thought you hired me for what I do that’s funny. You’ve got to give me some range.”
In the new message, Chase does have moments where he sounds more reasonable, though.
“I think your writing is great. I think everything you do is great,” he says. “But the really problem is, Dan, that you’re not there when we shoot and you’re not there when they edit so you don’t even know what you have. You don’t even know what it is that I’m [bleeping] doing and if you want me on this [bleeping] show again, I got news for you.”
NBC has yet to confirm if “Community” will be picked up for a fourth season, given it’s weak showing of 3.1 million viewers last week. Chase’s latest comments certainly cannot help the show’s case.