Joel McHale of E!’s “The Soup” and the NBC comedy “Community” was on The Today Show yesterday. Community is my favorite comedy and McHale and the rest of the cast are just brilliant in it. The show is full of clever jokes and apt pop culture references that have you crying laughing. (You can pick up watching it at any point and it’s available on NBC.com and Hulu.) Anyway Joel is also the host of The Soup, which regularly makes fun of other talkshows, including The Today Show with Kathy Lee and Hoda. Most of the segment with Joel involved recaps of the way he’s mocked the two of them. There was plenty of ribbing about their antics. He even brought a bottle of single malt scotch with him and offered them some, since they’re shown drinking so frequently. This recap at Hollywood.com does better justice than I can to Joel’s appearance, but just watch the clip above if you can get away with it where you are:

God bless Joel McHale. He stars on one the funniest shows on television, Community, and hosts the always entertaining round-up of the most hilarious bits of terrible television, The Soup, and he’s easy on the eyes, so that doesn’t hurt either. Now, he’s hit a new high. He stopped by the set of The Today Show this morning to promote Community with a bottle of single malt scotch in hand. (Don’t worry, he brought enough cups to share the boozy wealth with Kathy Lee and Hoda.)

In case you, I don’t know, have a life and aren’t sitting around watching the fourth hour of The Today Show on a regular basis, the ongoing joke about hosts Hoda Kotb and Kathy Lee Gifford is that they get up the courage to “entertain” us with an entire hour of inane banter by getting a little toasty first. And if you saw Hoda at the Super Bowl last year, you know there’s plenty of high proof fuel for that fire. McHale (and everyone else, including SNL) reiterates this point over and over again on The Soup – perhaps because the ladies continue to act like they’re blasted on a daily basis. When he stepped on set, it was obvious that the allegedly drunken duo was ready to grill him for his crimes against the precious fourth hour…

Finally, the ladies got to the elephant in the room and ask him why he continues to mock their show to which he replied, “Have you seen your show?” Score one, McHale. (Or score about a million.) McHale also cited the infamous Super Bowl segment, capping it off with “How’d you get those beads?” (Duh, Joel she can’t remember if she flashed someone or not. She was “allegedly” drunk!)

[From Hollywood.com]

You could tell that Kathy Lee was slightly offended by the way The Soup has been mocking her, but once Joel got the two of them laughing their asses off they were ready to forgive him. How could anyone stay made at that guy?

Last night’s Community featured Hilary Duff as a new mean girl on campus. I haven’t seen it yet but I’m excited to, and am sure it’s hysterical. Highlights this season include the zombie Halloween special and the excellent Apollo 13 tribute. This show is pure genius.

Here’s McHale promoting the show earlier in the morning:

Here are a bunch of pictures of McHale from this year. The bottom photo is from Comicon. Credit: WENN and Fame.