"Believe me, I thought it was a prank when my agents first called," he recalled.
The role was particularly exciting for The Soup host McHale because he was a super-fan of the original series, which aired on Fox between 1993 and 2002.
"I think I have seen every episode," he explained. "At one point, someone mentioned that I was a fan and David Duchovny was standing there and he said, 'Are you a fan?' and I said, 'Yes, yes I am, Mr Duchovny. Please don't be mad. You guys have no idea how big of a fan I was'.
"And they were like, 'Okay.' They were so cool about it because I was like, 'I know you're a huge Soup fan, right dude?' It was still a dream come true."