Drunk Catwalk / Drunk Cowboy

About

Drunk Catwalk, also known as Drunk Cowboy, is a scene from the 2003 comedy TV show Reno 911! in which the character Deputy Clementine Johnson (played by Wendi McLendon-Covey) conducts a traffic stop, encountering a gifted drunk cowboy dancer who humorously performs the "walk and turn test." The clip became a fan favorite over the following years, resurfacing in 2018 after it was reposted on YouTube. In 2023, the scene notably became the subject of parodies and Halloween costumes as people reenacted it on social media.

Origin

The Drunk Cowboy scene^[1] originally aired on October 15th, 2003, in episode 13, titled "Terrorist Training (Part 2)," of the first season of the sitcom Reno 911!. In one particular moment of the episode, Deputy Clementine Johnson stops a drunk cowboy on the road and makes him do a DUI/DWI field sobriety test. Instead of a normal field sobriety test, the officer asks the man to reproduce the dance movements she is showing him. The earliest known video available online of the scene was uploaded on YouTube^[2] by user @HunterIsOnABoat on October 8th, 2009, which garnered over 43,000 views and 238 likes in 15 years (seen below).

Spread

Over the following years, the scene was regularly shared on meme websites and pages on social media, being officially uploaded by Reno 911's official YouTube^[3] account on March 20th, 2018. The video amassed over 5 million views and 81,000 likes in five years (shown below).

On October 2023, Reno 911's Drunk Catwalk skit became the theme of various Halloween costumes, with people uploading parodies of the scene pm social media. For example, on October 30th, 2023, TikTok^[4] user @stephtychinski recreated the scene with a friend (shown below, left), which garnered over 8 million plays and 1 million likes in five days. A day later, on October 31st, TikTok^[5] user @iamjunyen posted a similar parody video (shown below, right), amassing more than 1 million plays and 118,000 likes in four days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References