It's A Van Dyke, Not A Goatee

I was watching a group reaction video to Community's greatest episode, "Remedial Chaos Theory." Yes, that's what I do nowadays.

This is the episode where, in the darkest timeline, Abed makes goatees for the group so they can devote their lives to evil.  Later, in the discussion (around the 21 minute mark), one of the group notes that in an episode of South Park, Cartman from the evil universe has a goatee as well.  So apparently, he concludes, there's something about evil characters and goatees.

I know this group is young, but come on, everyone knows how goatees and evil became associated.  It was in the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror." Kirk and crew beam to a parallel universe where the Enterprise is filled with evil characters. (How this conniving group, constantly plotting assassination, has remained stable enough to be in the same position as the regular Enterprise is hard to explain, but that's part of the fun of Star Trek).

There are many differences between the good Enterprise and the evil Enterprise--for instance, in the latter, officers carry daggers--but the best thing is in the evil Enterprise Spock sports a goatee. Why?  No reason, except what else would an evil Spock have?

In fact, long after everything else about the episode is vague or forgotten, the image of the bearded Spock remains.