DanHarmon

The casting gods have given us yet another reason to love 'Community.' It's been announced that none other than the great John Goodman has signed on for a recurring role in Season 3.

According to 'New York Magazine,' Goodman is joining Greendale Community College as the "new vice dean of its heretofore unexplored school of air conditioning repair."

He will appear in at least six episodes of the upcoming Season 3, starting with the season opener.

Goodman's character will reportedly become a major enemy of both Dean Pelton (played by newly promoted series regular Jim Rash) and the study group.

Series creator Dan Harmon said that "When I heard we were going after Goodman, I got really excited about the idea of Jim Rash and Goodman on camera together." He's not the only one!

At the same NBC TCA party where I spoke to Joel McHale, I also ran into Community creator Dan Harmon. Suffice to say, he's a chatty fellow. I started off by asking him how a first-time show runner like him prepares to be in front of a ballroom full of reporters, as he had been earlier in the day. His answer was pretty interesting: they get briefed and told we're a bitter lot.

Harmon's claim to fame before Community was that he helped create The Sarah Silverman Program for Comedy Central, and he was one of the few people who thinks that the network creative process has been as smooth, if not smoother, than the process for basic cable.

He also got extremely effusive about having Chevy Chase on his show; I was going to edit his epic response to my question about Chevy, but it's so loopy that I figured I'd just let it stand as is. Interview after the jump.

With the much-anticipated premiere of Community finally bowing tonight, I figured it was a good time to pull out the interview I did with Joel McHale when I encountered him at the NBC party during the TCA press tour. I didn't talk to McHale about his current NBC show, however; I talked to him about his previous NBC show.

Fans of the British sitcom The IT Crowd may remember that an American pilot was shot and the show was announced for NBC's midseason schedule a couple of years back, with McHale playing Roy and Richard Ayoade bringing his breakout role of Moss over from the original. Only, the pilot never saw the light of day, and a series was never picked up.

I asked McHale about what caused the show to be dropped and if he has any regrets over the show's flame-out. Then, as a person standing in front of the host of The Soup would tend to do, I asked him about what in the reality TV landscape gets him charged up. Interview is after the jump.