Exclusive ‘Harmontown’ Clip: That Time Dan Harmon Made Jason Sudeikis Prank Chevy Chase

By  · Published on September 25th, 2014

The Orchard

Community creator Dan Harmon and his former star Chevy Chase don’t exactly have the most cordial phone relationship. Way back in April of 2012, Chase and Harmon tussled big time – and pretty publicly – after Chase left Harmon a voicemail that can only be deemed “scathing.” Fortunately, it looks like the duo have sort of, kind of, maybe reconciled. At the very least, Chase isn’t leaving Harmon voicemails anymore, he’s just sending him single word text messages.

Harmon (and his podcast of the same name) is the subject of Neil Berkeley’s recent documentary Harmontown, which features all sorts of insights into the prickly creator and his beloved shows, and is particularly searing and emotional because it picks up after Harmon was ousted from his own show in 2012.. Oh, and also some prank calls that target Chase. Also those. Take a look:

Yes, that’s former Saturday Night Live star Jason Sudeikis on stage for a little live Harmontown action, and yes, you better believe that Harmon made the funny man leave Chase a prank message. Notice the terror on Sudeikis’ face. We feel ya, buddy, but your Joe Biden impression is still very strong and very amusing. We think it’s going to be okay (and, if Chase had any issues with the good-natured message, we’re guessing we’d have heard about it by now).

Harmontown premiered over the summer at the Los Angeles Film Festival, and our own Allison Loring was on hand to review the doc. The film follows Harmon and his Harmontown pals as they take the podcast on the road – literally – while the Community maker struggles to pen a pair of new pilots for different networks. Harmon is notoriously hard on himself, and the film attempts to dig deeper into his issues and come out with something meaningful and rich on the other side. According to Allison, the film succeeds. At the time of her review, she wrote:

Harmon may never get past his own demons, but getting out of his own head and on the road to meet the people he affects in a positive way is certainly a good start. Where Harmon asks what you do after you get everything you want, Berkeley’s Harmontown slowly uncovers that the answer may be finding happiness within yourself. The message at the heart of Harmontown shows how Harmon may have achieved certain goals, but the bigger challenge he still faces is learning to accept himself the way his audience and fans have accepted him.

The film sounds like a real must-see for Harmon’s rabid fans, and even casual observers of his work have more stuff like this Sudeikis gag to look forward to, as the film is crammed from top to bottom with recognizable talents, including Jack Black, Steve Agee, Alison Brie, Chris Hardwick, Gillian Jacobs, Joel McHale, John Oliver, Danny Pudi, Sarah Silverman and Ben Stiller.

Will it bring back the prank call? If an SNL star is on the other end, let’s hope so.

Harmontown will hit theaters and iTunes on October 3rd.