I’m turning 30 in August. There hasn’t been a day gone by recently where I haven’t thought about aging and how things just aren’t the same anymore. Damn you adulthood! And Buzzfeed!

Last night’s “G.I. Jeff” was mostly a glorious parody of the ’80s toy commercial masquerading as a cartoon, G.I. Joe. The show premiered a year after I was born, so my personal recollection of the show is muddy. I was more of a Care Bears guy, which clearly explains my resentment, cynicism and overall disappointment in life. I remember the theme song, the Reagan-era jingoism, the cheap animation, lack of casualties, Cobra Commander, Baroness, and some of the other stuff. But not any plots, if there was such a thing. I do remember the flood of toys and other merchandise (some of which my mom bought me) that was very popular at the time.

If you have any prior knowledge of the show, then the episode was a nonsensical delight. If not, you can still appreciate it as a parable about yearning for youth, one with that signature brand of Community humor we love.  It was half a mocking tribute to an animated show, half an existential dilemma about the fear of aging.

The episode starts in the animated world, but we’re quickly given hints that it’s all happening in Jeff’s head. He is Wingman, and he breaks one of the rules of the cartoon world by actually killing someone. He, along with Buzzkill (Britta, of course), Three Kids (Shirley, who can’t stop mentioning her three kids), and Tight Ship (Annie, forever type A) are put in a prison cell for their various behaviors. They meet another captive, Fourth Wall (Abed), while imprisoned. He utters the word “Greendale” and here we learn Jeff is either hallucinating or in a coma. Fourth Wall tells him his reaction to the word means he has a connection to it. From there, Jeff attempts to find reality while fending off Cobra forces that include Lipitor (Hickey), Overkill (Chang), and XimXam (Duncan). The funniest bit of the night was Duncan as a Cobra bad guy whose waiter twin brother can feel his pain, and the cutaway after he’s hit in the shin.

We find out in the end that Jeff’s been lying about his age. It’s his 40th birthday and he fell into a coma after taking some weird Korean age-reversal pills with some scotch. He awakens surrounded in a hospital bed by his concerned friends, who really don’t care how old he is ’cause Hickey will always be older.

The episode was written by Dino Stamatopoulos, a guy who knows his way around animated mockery with Adult Swim’s Morel Orel and Tom Goes to the Mayor and Fox ADHD’s High School USA! on his resume. The fake TV commercials during the show were so real I thought they were legitimate, until I noticed they were playing with the Community action figures. Surprisingly, Hasbro, the makers of the toys, were all on board with the parody even as Stamatopoulos provided lines like “this is all just a cartoon about action figures for kids!”

Overall, lots of good fun in this episode. Jeff’s fear of growing old offered enough emotional weight to make sure it wasn’t just a complete G.I. Joe tribute. It’s dangerous and can even be fatal to live in your childhood, and there comes a time to grow up. I did think it wrapped things up too neatly during the final act, and it also didn’t move things along that have happened during this season, but the individual jokes and gags were great. Community is so great when it uses pop culture as a starting point for the characters’ emotional development and maturation.

Because knowing is half the battle.