On Wednesday night, Comedy Central aired a new episode of its critically acclaimed scripted series, Broad City. Titled “Mushrooms” (Season 4, Episode 4), this latest installment in the series sees the show’s two protagonists—Ilana Wexler (played by Ilana Glazer) and Abbi Abrams (played by Abbi Jacobson)—enjoying a day off, with the show opening to the girls eating psychedelic mushrooms and following their (mis)adventures as the day unfolds. As their trip kicks in, the episode takes an unexpected turn, eschewing the show’s traditional acting for a trippy, Day-Glo animated sequence created by frequent collaborator and artist Mike Perry.
Broad City References Phish, Disco Biscuits, String Cheese Incident And More In New Episode
This Broad City Episode Was Chock Full Of Phish References
As the trip begins to tail off, the Broad City episode returns to its standard live-action format, though psychedelic special effects consistently appear throughout the rest of the show as the girls’ trips wind down. Toward the tail-end of “Mushrooms”, Abbi smokes some pot, which restarts her tripping and kicks off a nightmarishly bad trip. As she tries to calm herself down, Abbi reminds herself of things that soothe her (Oprah, Mark Ruffalo, flutes), and once she is reminded of “music”, images of Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio quickly flash on the screen.
This is not the first time that Broad City has given subtle nods to the jam-band community. Abbi Jacobson, one of the show’s lead actresses and co-creators, has been a “phan” for quite some time, telling Relix in a past interview, “I used to go to a lot of jam and Phish shows. . . . That’s what we did on the weekends—we’d see shows.” In an episode first aired last summer, the show’s character Abbi alluded to her jam-band days, namedropping Phish, RatDog, Dark Star Orchestra, the Disco Biscuits, and String Cheese Incident, and Broad City has previously quoted lines from Phish’s “Cavern” and “Run Like An Antelope.”
You can watch Trey Anastasio’s super-brief cameo on Broad City last night during Abbi’s terrible mushroom trip below, or watch the episode in its entirety on Comedy Central’s website here.