'Chuck' gets musical

I'm sitting in a ballroom full of more than 4,000 shrieking "Chuck" fans as the cast, led by  the show's Jeffster!, sing Queen's "Fat-Bottomed Girls" to kick off a panel on the Best Show You're Probably Not Watching for the people who not only are, but who helped save it from almost certain annihilation by NBC.

It's not just another day at Comic-Con.

A few reporters had been lucky enough to get a preview of the performance Friday night, as we left a Warner Bros. party at San Diego's Hiton Bay front right behind some of the cast, who, led by Zachary Levi, who plays unlikely spy Chuck Bartowski, were riding down the escalators singing the song at the top of their lungs.

They sounded pretty good, even without the magic of television.

Why that song for Jeffster?

"Fat Bottomed Girls seems like a song that certainly Jeff (Scott Krinsky) would gravitate to," said co-creator Josh Schwartz.

Everyone at Comic-Con, which often features projects for whom passions run higher than Nielsen ratings, makes a point of thanking the fans, but the "Chuck" cast and producers probably mean it more than most.

"You guys are incredible, I love you so much, thank you so much," said Zachary Levi, looking genuinely moved, as he talked about the various save-"Chuck" efforts led by fans.

Asked about the Season 2 finale and Chuck's sudden acquisition of physical skills to match his mental prowess, Levi was asked  if he'd been in training.

"The appropriate response would by yes," said Levi, who joked that he'd been doing a lot of virtual fighting. "My thumbs are worn to the bone."

Seems, though, that Chuck's newfound physical skills will come and go.

"You can't just know kung fu all the time, otherwise his handlers are obsolete, and you can't have that, otherwise you'd have no Adam [Baldwin] or Yvonne [Strahovski] and you can't have that, or you'd have no 'Chuck,'" said Levi.

As for the show's return, which isn't scheduled until midseason, "It could be sooner than was announced," said Schwartz.

Later, I asked Schwartz about NBC's decision to move "Mercy," not "Chuck," up to fall from midseason when "Parenthood" was delayed by Maura Tierney's health issues.

There's no way "Chuck," which hasn't even started production on Season 3, could have been ready in time, Schwartz said.

So no diss?

"If we'd been dissed, you'd have known it," he said, slamming his fist jokingly.