Rushing from opposite sides of town to Beverly Hills after work, trying not to miss the 7pm start time, a time we usually are just getting out of work, my wife and I rushed through LA traffic, on our cell phones, trying to figure out where we could park our two cars and still be near each other for when the night ended. Finally getting to Melrose and La Cienega with fifteen minutes to spare, we got our tickets, hit the bathroom and grabbed some nice cheap BevHill drinks before the show. For her, a glass of Pinot Noir. Me, a Michelob. Both for the bargain price of $21 with tip. With drinks in hand, we made our way to our seats up in the balcony.

The night opened up with a clip of an interview with Chevy from the 70’s interview show “Inside The Comedy Mind” in which he declares he wouldn’t go back to television until his film career is waning. Yep, that was just about right. But thank god he ended up with these kids instead of most of the crap “comedies” on the tube these days. After the crap that we had to see him sink to in the years preceding “Community,” it’s so good to see him in his element again. Surrounded by talented funny people who push him to be creative again.

Joel McHale, Ken Jeong, Donald Glover, Gillian Jacobs were all great. Unfortunately, Alison Brie, Yvette Nicole Brown and the amazing Danny Pudi couldn’t make it, but in the end it was Chevy’s night. He came out falling over chairs and pretty much controlled the night from that point on, that is when the show’s creator wasn’t rambling on about some philosophical meaning behind this screwball sitcom. Comedy is obviously Chevy’s rule number one, but beyond all the falling and the mumbling behind other people talking and gargling his water and acting like he couldn’t hear the moderator and everyone else’s stories about him calling them pricks or fucks or wondering aloud about how it is for them to be both fat and gay, he ended the night with unexpected sincerity.

He said, “You know, I started on ‘SNL’ in its first year with [John] Belushi and Gilda [Radner] and people who are still here like Jane [Curtin] and Danny [Aykroyd] and Billy [Murray]. I’ve worked with some of the best and I don’t know that any of them, for this type of show, could do a better job than this cast does… This is a step up for me.”

It was just a sublime experience. I can only assume that this will be the only time I will be in the same room as Chevy and we got our money’s worth.

(Just a few shots I got from upstairs. Yeah, they’re blurry but it’s good stuff of Chevy falling and crawling around and Ken Jeong screaming things to him as if he were a deaf old man. Good times.)

[Some info to aid my recollections for the night came from tv.com, thefutoncritic.com and zap2it.com.]