Five Times Joel McHale Randomly Showed Up and Made Things Better
While we’re all still waiting for the Community movie (which may or may not be about pirates), fans suffering from AJDM (Acute Joel McHale Deficiency) will likely want to check out the new comedy series Animal Control, starring McHale as an officer of what is perhaps the only law enforcement branch people can still get behind.
While McHale has had his share of leading man projects, he has also shown up in some surprisingly random movies and TV shows, usually for the better. Here are some of our favorite “Hey, everybody shut up, isn’t that Joel McHale?” moments...
As Chevy Chase in ‘A Futile and Stupid Gesture’
Netflix’s biopic about National Lampoon co-founder (and Caddyshack co-writer) Doug Kenney featured a number of recognizable actors playing comedy legends, like Jon Daly as Bill Murray and Seth Green as Christopher Guest. McHale has a small role as Chevy Chase, which is odd because, apart from their height, the two don’t really look much alike. But it’s still interesting to see McHale play Chase, his former Community co-star who once tried "to fight" him, dislocating his shoulder and sending him to the hospital.
As Tad O’Malley in ‘The X-Files’
When The X-Files returned in 2016, the results were mixed at best. One of the most bizarre — but in retrospect, memorable — choices was to cast McHale as Tad O’Malley, a conspiracy theorist TV host who’s basically the Alex Jones of the X-Files-verse. But in a world in which aliens, ghosts and robot cockroaches exist, he’s tall, handsome and not completely full of crap.
As Johnny Cage in ‘Mortal Kombat Legends’
Apparently, McHale lent his voice talents to several straight-to-video animated Mortal Kombat movies, playing the cocky movie star Johnny Cage, which is… kind of perfect. And it’s presumably nice to star in a Mortal Kombat movie without having to learn martial arts or wrassle with a 7-foot puppet.
As Mr. Jacks in ‘Spider-Man 2’
Who was the villain of Spider-Man 2? Doctor Octopus, right? Wrong. It was that snide bank manager played by a young Joel McHale, who not only denies Aunt May’s loan application but won’t even give her a measly free toaster. Spider-Man: No Way Home really needed a post-credit scene of the three Peters heroically webbing his car to the bottom of the George Washington Bridge.
As Greg Welch in ‘CSI: Miami’
Either because CSI: Miami is set in the Marvel universe, or McHale just excels at playing bankers whose branches are immediately robbed seconds after he turns down someone’s request for money, McHale was Greg the bank manager on a 2005 episode of CSI: Miami.
Apparently not one for brand loyalty, just a few years later, McHale was publicly dunking on David Caruso’s pun-and-sunglasses shtick in an episode of The Soup.
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