Chevy Chase Goes on ‘Vacation’ as ‘Community: The Movie’ Will Return Without Him
Actor Chevy Chase may not return in the upcoming Community: The Movie, but he did go on Vacation – at least on social media.
The same day NBCUniversal announced Community will return with a film, Chase posted a TikTok to the tune “Vacation,” a song about a wonderful life, an “occupation” of being on vacation, and “if you don’t like your life then you should go and change it.” Included in the video are moments filming his enduring family film franchise Vacation. But also throwback experiences with his wife, and NBA greats Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Some fans wondered if the video signaled another Vacation film. Others asked on social media about his return to Community: The Movie.
Chase also added another TikTok with comedians David Spade and Dana Carvey. Carvey and Spade host the podcast Fly on the Wall so perhaps Chase teased a possible upcoming appearance.
Chevy Chase on ‘Vacation’ but nods at the return of ‘Community’
Chase posted the Vacation video on Instagram, but he also flicked at Community in his Instagram stories. Chase reposted a video from a fan where his character Pierce Hawthorne has a conversation with Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) about his interest in Britta (Gillian Jacobs). Pierce calls Britta ugly in the series and the clip and refers to her as a “water filter.”
Chase also shared another fan post about Community, along with the fan’s comment, “Don’t you put Chevy Chase in a corner.”
Some fans also commented about Chase’s absence from the upcoming film, which will stream on NBCUniversal’s Peacock platform. “We need to see Pierce Hawthorne back! Man was street ahead!” one person wrote on Chase’s Instagram. Another person wrote, “Chevy plz tell me ur doing the movie” which got the reply, “Nobody on the cast of community likes him so I doubt it.”
‘Community’ creator said Chevy would never return to the show
Chase is not the only cast member who won’t appear in Community: The Movie. Donald Glover and Yvette Nicole Brown are also not anticipated to be in the film. Glover and Brown had outside professional and personal reasons for leaving Community, the series. But Chase had a conflict with working on the series itself. The conflict was so intense, series creator Dan Harmon ended up killing off his character.
Harmon told IGN in 2014 that Chase’s departure from Community was permanent. “Yeah, I mean, the truth is, I just don’t think it was ever in the cards for Chevy to make a return to the show,” he said. “So if you have a character that’s no longer on the show and was the old fella of the group, it’s a handy narrative device… Because Chevy will be missed on that screen and that character was Chevy at his best, in my very humble opinion.”
How did Pierce die on ‘Community’?
Chase’s character Pierce had a fatal heart attack. Even though he was not on the series, his character continued to influence the show.
“So it was nice to be able to have that character still affecting things from beyond because Chevy did leave such a vacuum,” Harmon said. “So to acknowledge that Pierce Hawthorne left a vacuum and that he’s still affecting them from beyond, we thought was an interesting thing. I don’t know, there was no real strategy to killing off his character. It just felt like a good way to tell some grounded stories and to sort of symbolically combine the departure of Troy with the departure of the other guy that left. It felt poetic to us.”
