Who among us hasn’t posted an anonymous question on the Internet in hopes of getting an answer we can’t quite figure out how to Google? As it turns out, sitcom writers are just like us—or at least that’s the prevailing theory about an odd Reddit question that seems to have influenced a joke on one of the brand new episodes of Community.


A few months ago a new Reddit user named Sebhinton ventured to the /r/Portuguese forum to ask how one might translate the phrase “knee-high mischief” into Portuguese. The user further clarified that they were looking to describe a small troublemaking creature that wasn’t a child and wasn’t cute (“Kind of like a gremlin,” they added), and then inquired about the correct way to say, “Do these knee-high mischiefs have any weaknesses?” After some helpful discussion, Sebhinton eventually settled on the phrase “Esses pequenos patifes têm alguma fraqueza?”

And while that’s likely far from the oddest question that’s been posed on Reddit, it was thrown into a new light when that exact phrase appeared in the second episode of Community’s new season in a clip from the fake “Portuguese Gremlins” Annie and Abed rent on VHS. (Eagle-eyed Reddit user MadIrishRogue spotted the connection.)


No Community writer has yet claimed credit for posing the question, but unless this is the most absurd of coincidences, it’s all but certain that Reddit played a small role in shaping this season of the show. All in all, that’s probably a far better use of the site than hunting for fugitives or leaking nude photos. [via DailyDot]