You definitely consumed it in December, when US representative Ilhan Omar responded to an ExxonMobil tweet about climate change by tweeting a screenshot of Hot Dog Car Guy saying, “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this.” And you’ve almost certainly seen it pop onto your timeline on Fridays, when screenshots of a Robinson character singing the phrase “Fri … day … night” make their weekly rounds. Even if you’ve never watched the show, you’ve consumed it.įirst, you probably consumed it in the form of Ruben Rabasa, an octogenarian character actor who captivated the internet by yelling “STINKY!” in a sketch about a focus group. But it has also allowed I Think You Should Leave, with its feverish parade of awkwardness and vicarious self-flagellation, to snowball into an entirely new sort of comedy phenomenon: a cult hit that has achieved an outsized level of cultural impact, at least in terms of memes produced per minute of run time.
It turned Key & Peele into a YouTube juggernaut. Streaming has reinvigorated sitcoms like The Office and Friends, garnering them new fan bases and making them the mindless comfort-watch of multiple generations.
