5 Reasons Community’s MeowMeowBeenz Episode was Awesome

App Development and Condiments, the eighth episode of the fifth season of Community, is about a new app called MeowMeowBeenz that lets people rank each other. The rating system quickly takes over Greendale Community College turning the campus into a dystopian sci-fi nightmare.

This episode gets five MeowMeowBeenz and here’s why:

1. Mitch Hurwitz as Koogler

Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz plays Koogler. “He’s cool. He likes to get laid. He’s not that old.” He’s a character straight out of an ’80s sex comedy.

All of Koogler’s lines from the episode

Koogler Movie Trailer

The trailer’s music is from Joysticks (1983), an ’80s teen sex comedy starring Joe Don Baker (Mitchell), Jon Gries (LOST, Napoleon Dynamite), and lots of boobs. One of the more memorable scenes involves a game of “strip video” resulting in topless girls playing a generic version of Pac-Man.

Go ahead on and watch the Joysticks intro below:

2. Directed by Rob Schrab

Rob Schrab, Dan Harmon’s long time friend and writing partner, directed this episode and did a fantastic job as always. Schrab also directed Basic Lupine Urology, the Law and Order parody episode from season 3.

Here’s an “All Hail Britta” poster also by Rob Schrab.

3. Dystopian Sci-Fi References

Much of this episode was inspired by ’70s dystopian sci-fi films like Logan’s Run.

Here are just a few of the references:

Starburns (Dino Stamatopoulos) dressed as Zardoz aka Stardoz

D-503, Jeff Winger’s room number, is also the name of the main character in the dystopian novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. (source)

The Koogler movie is from 1984 (source)

Leonard’s uniform is from Logan’s Run (source)

4. Comedian Cameos

Steve Agee and Brian Posehn as the MeowMeowBeenz app developers. They also starred together in The Sarah Silverman Program which was created by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab.

Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim and Jen Kirkman (also wearing costumes reminiscent of Logan’s Run)

5. Jonathan Banks Wearing a Party Hat

Buzz Hickey, played by Jonathan Banks (Mike Ehrmantraut from Breaking Bad), spent almost the entire episode wearing a party hat. His line, “Nobody is going to downvote a guy on his birthday,” is probably a reference to Reddit. Redditors traditionally ask for upvotes on their cake day.


GIFs via the official Community tumblr.

Bonus Trivia

– Community write Matt Roller shared a list of alternative names that were considered before settling on MeowMeowBeenz:

Cinnamon Bears, PowPowPanda, Cowly, BaaBaaFriends, PoofyClouds, GripItNRibbit, Rankcoon, WallyWinks, FriendScoopz, Paligators, WollyPogs, CookieBugz, ChockyWocks, CandyPillar, Ridleyz, PoodleDoodles, Kowalla, JackalSmax, DeerFrenz, Awwwtopus, NuzzlePudge, PudgeBabies, CloverRover, CutieFins.

– Fans are currently working on a real life MeowMeowBeenz app! Stay streets ahead and pre-register for the app at signup.meowmeowbeenz.com.

Find out more about the app at the MeowMeowBeenz subreddit.