Cannes Film Festival 2013

'Community': John Oliver gets a promotion

Look for "The Daily Show" veteran to be more prominent in season two.

<p>John Oliver, left, and Ken Jeong, right, will both have new roles in the new season of "Community."</p>

John Oliver, left, and Ken Jeong, right, will both have new roles in the new season of "Community."

Credit: NBC

As mentioned in my recap of the "Community" panel at Comic-Con, afterwards I did several interviews with the cast and creative team. Most of those probably won't get published until I'm done with Comic-Con and then the TV critics press tour, but I should have a video interview with Donald Glover and Danny Pudi up tomorrow, and right now I wanted to immediately share one piece of news from a long interview I did with creator Dan Harmon, coming right up (note there are some small spoilers for the season premiere, but the usually spoiler-averse Harmon wasn't bothered to reveal them, so neither am I)...

Near the end of last season, Senor Chang (Ken Jeong) was fired from his job as Spanish teacher when it was revealed he had no real training for it. Chang became a student, and as the study group finished their first year at Greendale, they all agreed to take an anthropology class the next year so they'd have an excuse to stick together.

For similar reasons, Harmon said he wanted to put the characters into a new class for season two, since  the study room in the library is "like your 'Star Trek' bridge or your 'Cheers' bar."

In the season premiere, the anthropology professor will be played by the ubiquitous Betty White, but her character will be suspended by the school for her behavior in the premiere.

"Which means she might come back at any time," said Harmon, "And I would leave that up to Ms. White, pretty much. I'm a big fan."

So who will become the group's new teacher? Look no further than John Oliver as Professor Ian Duncan, whose specialty is psychology, but who will be temporarily filling in for White's character.

Harmon said Oliver was "one of my favorite things about the first season, even though you never ever get to see him, and he's one of the funniest guys I've ever worked with. I wanted to see what it might be like, just to see it, if he in fact was the so-called Chang and Chang was one of the students. Whether or not that makes Chang part of the study group, I won't address, but I wanted to see John Oliver in front of our ensemble, teaching some kind of class. The nice way to do it is to have him filling in for a suspended Betty White."

And why did Harmon decide to demote Chang from professor to student?

"I don't want people to get tired of anything," he said. "Ken Jeong is a funny dude. And the position of teacher - guy assigning homework and giving tests and being the ironically crazy authority figure - it was good for exactly one season, in my opinion... There would be a shelf life there. Ken Jeong is funny in very, very specific ways, and is a very well-received flavor in the show. I think that him as a student is going to create more opportunities for a really memorable character. I think we did enough with him standing in front of the classroom teaching bad Spanish."

Alan-sepinwall-sm
Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching
Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

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  • Default-avatar

    Derek

    I hope this doesn't mean a decreased role on The Daily Show. John is a brilliant correspondent, and I wouldn't want to lose him.

    July 25, 2010 at 3:06PM EST Reply to Comment
    • Default-avatar

      Alanna More importantly, I hope this doesn't mean bad things for his podcast, The Bugle. (Utterly brilliant show.)

      July 25, 2010 at 3:22PM EST
    • Default-avatar

      kabak i think his family wouldnt mind considering the higher paycheck

      July 26, 2010 at 10:33AM EST
  • Default-avatar

    Circumvrent

    That's exciting - I'm glad that Community will not only get a Betty White Bump but will be bringing on Oliver full time.

    But I really hope that Jeong doesn't join the study group. They have a great balance there, and Jeong's cartoonishness will totally ruin that. He works on the show, and he's a funny guy, but I don't think he'd be funny in that capacity.

    I was also very, very excited to read that every episode of the DVD is going to have commentary on it. It's going to be a must-own in September.

    July 25, 2010 at 3:10PM EST Reply to Comment
    • Default-avatar

      Col Bat Guano Yeah, Senor Chang worked in small doses for me. Him hanging out in the study room all the time would be too much. Although I will forgive him almost anything just for that scene in "Modern Warfare".

      July 26, 2010 at 11:26AM EST
  • Midnight_run_mca255950_talkback_profile

    sepinwall

    I don't believe he'll actually be a cast regular (and therefore should still be available for Daily Show); we'll just see him more often as a guest star than we did in season 1.

    July 25, 2010 at 3:24PM EST Reply to Comment
    • 9yearsold_talkback_profile

      klg19 THAT's a relief! He's one of the strongest elements of The Daily Show.

      July 26, 2010 at 7:57AM EST
  • Default-avatar

    Kujo

    I believe Oliver was only in 3 of the 25 episodes.

    July 25, 2010 at 3:49PM EST Reply to Comment
    • Midnight_run_mca255950_talkback_profile

      sepinwall Had to be more than 3. He was in the pilot and the finale, and the episode with his psych experiment, and the one pictured above where he served on the tribunal. And there may have been one or two others that don't immediately come to mind.

      July 25, 2010 at 4:02PM EST
    • God, the psych experiment killed me! I'm very excited for this to come out on DVD. IMDb says he was in five: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1056659/

      July 25, 2010 at 6:27PM EST
    • Chew_talkback_profile

      Shitegeist He was in five eps of season one (god bless you, imdb).

      July 25, 2010 at 6:48PM EST
  • Avatar_talkback_profile

    Jaynee

    That picture you used in the post is from my second favorite episode of the entire season that they have yet to re-run. LOVED IT.

    I like Ken Jeong, but I really hope they DON'T make him part of the study group - I think that would be too much. The chemistry the group has now is pretty much perfect, and a little of Chang goes a long way (see the Kickpuncher scene as a prime example). I think promoting John Oliver is excellent - he was fantastic in Season 1 and I was sad we didn't get to see more of him.

    July 25, 2010 at 7:15PM EST Reply to Comment
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      jenfullmoon I bet what they'll do is have him attempt to join the study group, and then everyone kicks him out for being super-annoying. Yes, they did that plot with Jack Black, but I'd be surprised if they didn't have Chang trying to get in on that action, so...

      July 26, 2010 at 2:50PM EST
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    Chrissy

    I doubt we'll see Chang as part of the study group, at least not full-time. The creators seem to have a great sense of how to play with TV conventions, and I think they showed in the Jack Black episode how they'd treat someone new joining the group. I think Chang would work well as a sometime-ally, sometime-gadfly for the group, with his own stuff going on as well.

    July 26, 2010 at 1:48PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    Scott H

    Having John Oliver appear more frequently is about the only way "Community" can top itself in Season 2. He was fantastic in Season 1.

    July 26, 2010 at 4:53PM EST Reply to Comment

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