Joel McHale to open up a can of comedy in North Texas

It wasn't easy for workaholic Joel McHale to find time to bring his live comedy show to North Texas.

Between starring in the NBC comedy Community, hosting The Soup on E! and filming a new movie, he says, "I live a life where I'm constantly catching up on sleep and not seeing my family enough."

By shoehorning in a visit to Texas to entertain his fans in person Friday at Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie, McHale might be pushing it a bit. "My wife is not thrilled," he says.

But there's a reason the funnyman can't say no to a workload that's bursting at the seams.

"I was raised Catholic," McHale says, "so I think at any moment I'm going to be fired from everything!"

We chatted with McHale about Community, one of the best comedies on the airwaves, and more.

Many of the episodes of Community, in which you play a lawyer-turned-community college student, border on the surreal. Are these among your favorites?

I don't think any other show has our sensibility. I think the closest thing may be Pushing Daisies a couple of years ago, which was a fantastical world. Ours is based in reality and fantastical things happen. I liken it to something like Shaun of the Dead, where the characters are all very real and they're not ridiculous, but what's happening around them is kind of fantastic.

Such as you and your phys. ed. coach battling it out in a heated game of nude billiards?

Or a community college where the whole school was turned upside-down and it's every man for himself trying to shoot each other with paintballs. Or when the new currency of the school becomes chicken fingers. I mean, where have you ever heard that before?

This season, we're going to see an Apollo 13 episode, a Halloween zombie episode and a stop-motion Christmas episode. Which do you think will be the new classic?

I think it's either going to be our Apollo 13 episode or the zombie episode. But I actually haven't seen any of them yet, so I only say that because they're both kind of as big as 'Paintball.'

Is there any doubt that NBC will sell Claymation-style versions of you and the gang on its website after the episode airs?

Oh, they'll start making millions of those as soon as they get the renderings, because they know they will be the next Cabbage Patch doll and Tickle Me Elmo combined. The Chevy Chase doll's going to be amazing. It comes with real napping skills.

Do you approve of the way the season opener handled the stories left dangling in last year's finale, from Britta professing her love for Jeff to Jeff and Annie's end-of-the-episode kiss?

I'm very happy we didn't shy away from it. There was even a line in the show that says: 'Real life is not like TV. It's messy.' So things weren't kind of buttoned up, like on Gilligan's Island, when they're all just kind of back on the island. With us, the reset button wasn't hit.

Hey, don't knock Gilligan's Island.

No, I love Gilligan's Island, believe me. But come on! I mean, they had so many chances.

That said, how long can Jeff stay a student before Greendale Community College turns into a Gilligan's Island?

Well, you have to get a degree, and you know how that goes. Either you can do it in three years or horrible things can happen and it will take seven. Maybe a brain injury will slow me down. But we see about one or two scripts ahead. I don't know the grand plan yet. If the show is successful, I'm sure they'll find all sorts of ways to keep everyone in school.

Since the billiards episode, has anybody challenged you to a game of pool?

Only in West Hollywood. And a couple of red-light districts. Believe me, when I had to lean over that pool table and the entire cast, plus 30 extras, were looking, I thought, 'Wow, this is not something I ever planned on!'