Here is yet another, even angrier Chevy Chase voicemail in which he lays into Community's Dan Harmon
Dan Harmon’s self-deprecating mea culpa seemed to put an end to the whole, most recent Chevy Chase affair, but unfortunately, there is apparently no end to the recorded evidence of his and Chase’s long-brewing contentious relationship on the set of Community. As proof, Celebuzz has dug up yet another audio diatribe from Chase (embedded below) that was recorded in March 2011, which Harmon reportedly played for a room full of “’stunned’ production executives who were ‘shocked that it was being played to them… as an apparent joke,’” before it made its way to the web, once it became clear that people were morbidly interested in hearing this sort of thing. And much like the other time Harmon played one of Chase’s voicemails, or as with any of the other subtle and not-so-subtle digs the two have exchanged over the past year or so, the joke seems to be how much they really, really dislike each other. Get it?
As expected, the voicemail once again finds Chase complaining—albeit in a slightly less rambling manner this time—about the “disconnect” between the show Chase believes he’s shooting and the “fucking mediocre sitcom” he sees every week on the screen, a chasm Chase attributes variously to decisions made in editing, a lack of on-set direction from Harmon, and the fact that Harmon just plain doesn’t get him. “The other part of the disconnect is obviously, you don't get my humor at all, or what it is I do that's funny, that actually makes people laugh,” Chase says (to which Harmon casually responds, “That’s true” and “I do agree with that”). Chase then goes on to complain that most of his improvised attempts to get that signature brand of Chevy Chase-funny just end up being edited out, usually in favor of dumb and pointless things like character development or “story”:
There are two choices. One is the story line—like everybody gives a shit about the fucking story when they don't even know who the characters are. Or, there's make people laugh… [My scene is] cut down. For what? So people can follow the story line between Joel [McHale] and Gillian[Jacobs]? And love affairs and kissing? Come on, man! You're missing the fucking point! I mean, this is not my kind of comedy. I thought you hired me for what I can do that's funny. You've got to give me some range. And then you’ve got some fucking editor with no fucking sense of humor—and no sense of me—cutting things down to the point where I just look like an asshole! I don’t like it.
Indeed, years of evidence to the contrary, Chevy Chase really doesn’t like looking like an asshole—so while Chase avers that he really likes Harmon and thinks “your writing is great… everything you do is great” (to which Harmon giggles in the background), he then makes the by-now familiar vow that he’s not going to put up with any of it for much longer. “If you want me on this show again, I have news for you: I don't want it,” Chase concludes. “It's just a mediocre fucking sitcom. 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, and I’ve been making a lot of people laugh a lot better than this.” Which is debatable, but you have to admit that sentence is indeed pretty funny.