The departure of Lea Michele, Chris Colfer and Cory Monteith from the Fox musical-comedy Glee has been called ridiculous by Anderson Cooper.

On Thursday's edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, Cooper took a swipe at Glee creator Ryan Murphy's plans to retire three of the show's biggest stars during season 3.

Murphy told The Hollywood Reporter that the high school characters played by Michele, Colfer and Monteith will graduate in the upcoming season and not return the next year.

“You can keep them on the show for six years and people will criticize you for not being realistic, or you can be really true to life and say when they started the show they were very clearly sophomores and they should graduate at the end of their senior year,” Murphy said.

Cooper sarcastically responded: “I guess the guy has a point. I mean, Glee is nothing if not a very true to life portrayal of a very, very realistic high school.”

“Clearly, Glee cannot compromise this air-tight sense of high school realism by letting three of its stars stay on the show past their teenage prime,” he added after playing a clip of the students rocking out in skin-tight leather outfits. (The video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)

Colfer, whose portrayal of gay student Kurt has earned him two Emmy nominations, told Entertainment Weekly that his graduation from the show was “bound to happen sooner or later.”

“I would love to pull a Farrah Fawcett from Charlie's Angels and come back every 10th episode. I'd be the obnoxious recurring star!” Colfer said.