NBC’s ‘Community’ season 4 spoilers: Who exactly is playing Jeff Winger’s dad?

If there is one thing more confusing than the Dreamatorium or how Pierce Hawthorne has so many friends, it is at the moment just who is supposed to be playing Jeff Winger’s father on “Community” season 4. If you remember back to this fall, then you are likely aware already aware that James Brolin was actually the man announced to be playing the role.

So what was our reaction when NBC announced on their Twitter and Facebook pages that Malcolm McDowell was going to be playing the character? Let’s just say that it was the equivalent of a jaw hanging on the floor. We have never heard anything about the role being switched over from Brolin to McDowell, and it would not really make that much sense anyway since McDowell, at least the last we heard, was going to be playing a history professor.

Ultimately, there are two possible theories to explain away this announcement:

1. NBC’s publicity department completely Britta’d this, and it is really Brolin who is playing the character rather than McDowell and they got the two confused.

2. Maybe there’s a crazy “who’s the father?” storyline coming up … and if so, they may as well go ahead and invite Maury Povich on as a guest, while they are at it.

We’ll have this cleared up hopefully soon, but for now we’re just assuming that this was a faux pas on NBC’s part. We just wanted to go ahead and post the story since there is a video about McDowell playing a part on the show below, in addition to a brand-new sneak peek from the February 7 premiere.

Just in case all of this is not enough to satisfy your “Community” hunger, you can also head on over to this link to watch Troy freak the you-know-what out in a new extended trailer for the show.

Update: NBC deleted the story from their Facebook account for the show, which suggests to us that they are now aware of their mistake.

Photo: NBC