Joel McHale promises he won't give up his day job at E! to star in Community, a new single-camera comedy on NBC this fall about (crazy) life at a junior college. "I'm going to do both Talk Soup and Community next fall," McHale told EW while walking the red carpet of the American Idol finale on Wednesday. "People can tune in to E! and NBC anytime they want to see me. The series doesn’t take as much time as it does for us to do Talk Soup because we do that almost every day, like a real job."

Community also stars Chevy Chase and Yvette Nicole Brown (Hotel for Dogs) and will air on Thursdays.
"I play someone who has lied through life. He's not very nice nor normal," explains McHale. "We found out we are going to follow The Office until 30 Rock comes back and then we are taking over at 8 p.m., where we will provide plenty of inappropriate jokes for children." (Reported by Carrie Bell)

http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2009/05/joel-mchale-on.html

I'm not a big fan of "The Soup", but I love Joel McHale. He used to be in the cast of a local show here in Seattle called "Almost Live". I was impressed last year when my husband and I were in Vegas because we saw a big billboard with Joel's picture on it, advertising his upcoming show at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. I think it's cool that he's been so successful!

I really like McHale, but I kind of sighed when reading his description of his character ("he's not very nice or normal").

Is there some kind of rule these days for situation comedies where the protagonist MUST be unlikeable? I really miss the days where at least someone on the show was someone we could identify with. In the old days you had people like Eddie Haskell and Louie DePalma and Herb Tarlich being nasty and selfish and perverted but modern sitcoms seem insistent on making such characters the main character.

Bleh.