“I’m the host, which I think we can all agree is…well actually that is a detriment,” McHale joked to Parade.com in a new interview ahead of the show’s premiere (May 26). In all seriousness, the comedian said, “When I saw the idea for the show, I thought, oh that’s great because there’s the mystery and kind of unboxing of what this dessert could be.” We’re already intrigued! “I thought that’s a really good way to get into it, instead of it being–I mean, there are obviously a lot of good cooking shows and baking shows, so this twist was really cool and brought a little bit of that kind of Masked Singer and I can see your Voice sort of element to it,” McHale continued. Crime Scene Kitchen sees bakers turn detectives as they use clues and crumbs to recreate desserts. “There’s no blood or gore in the Crime Scene Kitchen,” McHale said. “It would be really weird if there was like a dead body, and baking, you know, baking evidence. We don’t do that.” Unlike the contestants on the show, McHale doesn’t do a “ton of baking” himself, though he does handle the cooking when he’s home. “If someone were to say, ‘What do you like doing for fun?’, I love hosting dinners and cooking–and you can talk to any of my friends,” The Soup alum shared. While many baked banana bread during quarantine, McHale “took on a lot of savory dishes.” But one super sweet moment for us that took place during quarantine was his reunion with his former Community costars! Following the cast’s virtual table read last year, the TV star believes there’s hope for a Community movie. “I’ve already written it. Yeah, I wrote the whole thing. [Community creator and writer] Dan Harmon doesn’t know,” McHale jested. “No, I can’t confirm or deny that [anything is going to happen]…when you’re trying to put something like this together, there are so many working parts.” Though he added, “I will say, there’s more hope than ever.” Continue reading for more on Community, Crime Scene Kitchen and McHale’s cooking! This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity
There are so many cooking shows out there! Why should viewers tune in to Crime Scene Kitchen?
Yeah, there are a lot of cooking shows out there, some of them are really great. Well, I think with Yolanda Gampp, who literally is called the queen of cakes, and then you get Curtis Stone, who’s way too nice and way too handsome for as talented as he is, they are very good judges of these incredible cakes and desserts that get made. And again, I think the whole thing of these teams that go into this thing called the Crime Scene Kitchen, where there’s evidence of something that was baked there and they’ve got two minutes to get as much information as they can, and then they have basically two hours to recreate it, that mystery is really cool and you can see. I mean, the skill level is, bananas, and some of them are well trained and some of them are self-taught, and you’ll be amazed at how well the people who are self-taught do.
In your household, who does the cooking and the baking?
If I’m home, I’m doing the cooking. Yes, I cook and I clean. I clean up all of the dishes, too. It’s the least I can do for the amount of time I spend outside the house because I’m an obsessive-compulsive workaholic. Like, I’ll cook tonight. I really enjoy it and always have. So, my wife, she’s a very good cook, but she’s like, ‘Oh if you’re gonna do it, do it. I don’t want to.’ It’s great.
OK, be honest, how would your family rate your cooking skills?
Well, they better like it! Cause the kids aren’t cooking!
There was a lot of cooking going on during quarantine! How did you keep your spirits high during quarantine?
A lot of drinking! And let’s see, well Zoom school is not the best way to learn. I don’t know if you know this, at least for my kids and for me. So I’m glad that’s gone or almost gone. I’m very lucky because I’m a workaholic so when work stopped, you know, I didn’t feel panicky that it wasn’t going to happen again so I felt very, very lucky. It was no fun because the kids wanted to see their friends and all that, but the family did kind of come together, which was great. And I travel all the time and that all stopped, so my wife was like, “So weird how we’re in the middle of this horrifying pandemic and it’s good that you’re around more.” I’m like, “It’s weird, I know!”
Did you pick up any hobbies during this time?
I exercised a lot knowing that I was eating and drinking more. But no, I didn’t go like, “I need to take up woodworking.” That didn’t happen. Strangely it was very busy during the pandemic with school and doing stuff with the kids. I thought for a moment like, “Oh this is gonna be great. I’m gonna be able to clean up and fix up some rooms,” and then none of that happened.
As we’re kind of getting back a sense of normalcy, is there one thing you’re looking forward to doing as the world reopens?
I just like having people over for meals. I know a lot of people are like, “I love hugging.” I’m not the greatest hugger of all time so I was like, yeah, it’s fine. But I just like having people over and cooking. And so usually that was a thing that happened every weekend, and now we’re going back to that with anybody who’s vaccinated, we just make sure of that.
Speaking of reconnecting with people, let’s talk Community! I read a report that Yvette Nicole Brown said a movie is in the works. Are you able to confirm if that’s true?
I will say, there’s more hope than ever. A year ago, if you had said that to me before the table read I would have just been like, yeah, sure…But after that table-read and we all really enjoyed it and Pedro Pascal was so funny, I think people were like, “Hey you know what, this might be fun.” but we do need millions of dollars to make it because we need to get like a soundstage and cameras and pay a bunch of people, so it’d be great if you could help us out with that!
If I could, I would! But do you think there are more stories to tell for the Community cast/characters?
I don’t know. I mean, we kind of went to school, right? I don’t know how that would all work because it would be odd if we were like, “Hey, are we all still in class for 10 years for some reason? What happened to us?” That’s a good question. That would be a writer question.
What would you like to see have happened to your character Jeff Winger since the finale?
I guess it depends on what the timeline is. I don’t know. That’s a good question. Whenever I was like, “Hey I’d like to,” when we were making the show, I’d think, “It’d be great if my character…” and Dan always usually did the opposite. And without me even talking. I would never say like, “I think my character should do…” I never would say that because all that was in Dan’s brain. So I am open to anything if it happens. I would always read those scripts, we’d have table reads way back when, and I’d be like these scripts are so good. They’re so funny. I could never even come close to even imagining something like that. So, whatever it is I’m sure if it happens, it’ll be great.
It’s exciting to hear that last year’s table read kind of got the wheels turning on this.
It was so good to see everybody. It was like a family reunion, and I absolutely burst out crying at the end of it when it was all over. I was just like, “Aw I missed all of those people so much.” And it was really fun. And it’s just too bad that Donald [Glover]’s career hasn’t worked out. He’s a really nice guy [laughs].
You guys have obviously kept in touch since the finale?
We’re on a group text, which Donald didn’t even like because he’s been so busy, he wasn’t on the group text. He was on it, then he was off it, and then he was like, “Put me on a group text,” and then he said he turned on his phone and there were 70 exchanges between us. So yeah, it’s me making fun of Ken [Jeong] most of the time. Next, everything you need to know about Season 1 of Crime Scene Kitchen!
