Joel McHale explains why he played it straight for The Tiger King and I, and why he's optimistic for a Community movie

Variety

Sunday's Netflix Tiger King follow-up marked a return to Netflix for McHale, who hosted The Joel McHale Show Starring Joel McHale in 2018. McHale tells Variety he was approached to host on a Friday, and the various Tiger King subjects were sent iPads so that they could be filmed in 4K. “This wasn’t showing a clip from a cake competition baking show and this was not just a sitcom or something like that,” he says of playing The Tiger King and I straight. “I wanted to approach it as myself and having an actual conversation. I joke all the time, even during heavy conversations. It’s the way I kind of deal with things is with humor. But I didn’t want to make light of anything they were saying. But if Jeff (Lowe) was going to come on wearing an Affliction T-shirt, then I was definitely going to go for that.” As for Community getting a movie now that it's on Netflix, McHale says: "I would say there’s a better chance than there’s ever been. … For a long time I was like, ‘never gonna happen.’ And now I think with the renewed interest, and I know the cast is interested, that it could happen.”

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