From 'Soup' of the Day to Man of the Hour

He's now adding movies to his packed schedule (which also includes stand-up dates). His largest big-screen role so far is in The Informant! — which features Damon as an unreliable whistle-blower at an agricultural company, and a dialed-down McHale as a skeptical fed. ''I had an idea of casting stand-ups in these supporting roles, not because I want them to do anything funny per se, but because they just have an energy that is distinctive,'' explains Soderbergh. Perhaps not surprisingly, McHale sees nothing strange about making the silly-to-serious leap. ''In my mind I'm going, 'Hey, man, you gotta be versatile,''' he says. ''This is what I felt like I could always do if given the chance.... But yeah, I guess it is totally different than the guy that is in the hazmat suit with tongs, handing the Entertainer of the Year award to Tila Tequila.''

McHale hopes that Community's Jeff Winger will feel different from his Soup persona too. ''I just love how this guy is fighting against himself,'' he says of Jeff, ''and at any moment he can lie and be a complete jerk, but, like Jason Bourne, he doesn't want to use those skills anymore.'' Series creator Dan Harmon (The Sarah Silverman Program) says he wanted someone like ''Bill Murray in the '80s'' for his sitcom's lead. ''He has all of this power, and one of them is the power to charm your pants off, if he wants to,'' says Harmon of McHale. ''I think that we have sufficiently proven to ourselves as a culture that white straight males are pretty dopey. We're ready for a tall, dapper cad who's a little less apologetic about his alpha-maleness.'' Community costar Chevy Chase, who plays an eccentric entrepreneur/fellow student, sees a very familiar potential in McHale. ''He has a bit of an 'I don't give a s---' attitude that I had as Fletch,'' says Chase. ''He really does remind me of myself when I was younger in many ways — minus the talent, of course.''

The self-assured McHale knows who he is, and now it's just a matter of winning mainstream America over. ''For Community to get out of its first season is my major goal,'' he says. ''And I will promote the hell out of The Informant! — I'm mentioning it to babies in strollers, I literally just let my parking meter run out so I could talk to the meter maid. And [I want to] get high-quality movie roles. And then, I don't know, see if I can outrun Usain Bolt.... If he took 11 Ambien and had two bottles of wine, you blindfolded him, it was a 10-yard dash, and you didn't tell him it was happening? I could smoke that dude,'' he chuckles. ''I'd totally beat him.''

Inside the Mind of Joel McHale

We asked him to write a sidebar for this story, and he sent us a list he calls ''Seemingly Unrelated Things That I Think Are Related.'' Enjoy.

True Blood and 60 Minutes
Both on Sunday nights. Both dripping with sexual energy. Both feature the undead.

The universal-health-care debate and The Price Is Right
Both have audiences shouting about their fears and disappointment. You never see the people who lose on the big wheel again. Death panel.

Brett Favre and One Tree Hill
There was no reason for either to come back, but here they are.

Ryan Seacrest and the Cash for Clunkers program
Billions of dollars in funding. Too short to be of much use.

Extreme motocross and TLC's reality series Toddlers & Tiaras
Who are we kidding? They're both just flashy ways of destroying someone for life.