Pierce:”I know! It’s like Batman and Shaft.”

Troy: “Batman actually had a guy, his name was Robin.”

Pierce: “Troy, Batman’s friend didn’t have to be Robin. It could have been Shaft, Dolomite, Leroy Brown. Don’t let society limit your people.”

(For people who don’t watch the show. The next thing you see is other friends laughing at what Pierce has just said because Troy has Twittered it. The joke doesn’t end as a stand alone, but sits in context.)

So Pierce recites a series of Blacksploitation names and “your people” in one joke – but he’s not racist. Pierce’s character has always been mildly racist in that he has acknowledged race and made some disparagingly thoughtless, but not intentionally cruel, comments about it.

Community hasn’t ignored this on the whole. There’s even an episode that discussed how trying not to be racist can be interpreted as being racist (if you notice race, and are showing care because of it, are you being racist?) and it results in the ”ethnically neutral” school mascot. (Football, Feminism, and You 1.06)

Chase has known all along this was his character’s identity, and the show turns up the volume on character flaws (ego, inability to deal with reality, jealousy) all the time. So for Chase to freak out over this is really foolish. It seems like he just felt it was a great excuse to leave.

If you want to watch it, the first three seasons are available via Hulu Plus. Each season has about 25 episodes, so it’s worth that whole $7/month fee for getting Hulu Plus if you’d been considering it. You’ll be busy for some time, and just catch up in time for February. :)
P.S. You haven’t heard of it because it doesn’t appeal to lowest common denominator, and dumbing it down would kill it. NBC may have done that by opting to fire the show’s creator Dan Harmon (when he and Chase previously tangled) instead of just letting Chase go in the first place. That’s why people are asking if maybe they can get Harmon back now. I think he’d work with the other guys brought in to head the show – they were fans of his, and happy to jump in on a show they liked.

This was posted back on October 19th, both here and at the Hulu Plus link the new premiere date is still listed. Hopefully, it still stands – regardless of Chase’s bulls**t.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LV7M_WeGX8

Now that’s comedy gold.

I can’t imagine them making such a wise decision, though.  A “Kutcher-Sheen” or “fecal quid-pro-quo” seems more likely.

“I have to go, now.  My planet needs me.”

Complaining about your character becoming more bigoted (because you don’t want him to be) is racist now?

Ah! Sorry … any white person who used the N word is suspect. Regardless of the context. Got it.

Over here in the UK (albeit the land of un-free speech, compared to the US) a comedian won a libel case for just such a ludicrous and untrue insinuation.

It’s just a personal opinion, but for me, what he did, any time someone works with him, I’m alienated by them forever. If he’d served his time, that’d be one thing, but he’s unrepentant.

“During a television interview on 10 March 2011, Geimer blamed the media, reporters, the court, and the judge for causing ‘way more damage to [her] and her family than anything Roman Polanski has ever done,’ and stated that the judge was using her and a noted celebrity for his own personal gain from the media exposure.”
— Roman Polanski. (2012, November 22). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 11:59, November 22, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roman_Polanski&oldid=524326413

And if you don’t agree, YOU are a racist.

However, that’s not actually as important as it sounds, because the show is deliberately absurd.

There are entire episodes of the show that are completely flat though, most typically the ones that have singing in them. It’s not consistent at all. If Chevy Chase wants to make a good name for himself, playing Pearse in Community really isn’t the right way to do it.

I don’t really care if he’s an asshole, as far as I can see all he’s done is piss people off. These thespians need to get over themselves. They’d probably sell their mothers to act in a Roman Polanski flick, and that fucker raped a kid.

Peter Sellers disappeared into his roles. I think it’s from the book you mentioned that Sellers himself told an interviewer: “I don’t really have any personality of my own. There used to be a me behind the mask, but I had it surgically removed. I don’t know, if I didn’t have characters like Clouseau, I don’t know who I’d be.” He appeared to come from a place of deep self-doubt.

I grew up in the 70s, and watching Chevy’s work, he has always had the opposite problem- no matter what character he plays he’s still Chevy Chase reading lines, but still being Chevy Chase. In the 70s and 80s that was cool, because we thought Chevy was cool, but, like that older brother of a friend that you thought was so cool when you were all younger, it turns out he might have been just mean and arrogant all along.