More than a decade before he played a smarmy lawyer on Community, Joel McHale played a far more smarmy, yet far more incompetent one on an episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy.
With Frankenstorm Sandy pelting the U.S. East Coast, it’s shaping up to potentially be a grim week. But the internet knows that in the darkest of times is when it is needed the most. And boy does it deliver with this.
According to the video, uncovered by Crushable, McHale got his start on a Seattle sketch show called Almost Live, as did the man who would grow up to be the Science Guy himself. This sublime collaboration might be the best thing Seattle has given the world, save for Microsoft and grande caramel macchiatos.
The clip comes from an episode called “Fluids,” (in a segment called “The People’s Quart,” naturally) and McHale plays a dweebish lawyer/defendant with a wildly unscientific defense for drinking someone else’s hot chocolate.
McHale’s defense of “warm fluids rise” seems perfectly reasonable for a bit (evaporation, right???) and you know this guy knows what he’s talking about because he has taped-up glasses and an awful tie. But then the judge shows a chart of hot chocolate literally rising out of a mug and it becomes quite clear he has no shot.
Still, the real Jeff Winger would have found a way to win this case, despite the fact that liquid cannot physically levitate. At the very least he would have come up with a better Winger-zinger than “you can’t handle the fluid!”
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