Did you know that the eternally angry Captain Dickson is in reality a rapper named Ice Cube? It's true! How's THAT for a factoid? Well, it's a factoid that 22 Jump Street doesn't want you to forget, as it has some jokes at its expense. For starters, when admiring their unnecessarily expensive new base, Schmidt points out that Dickson's office looks like a "cube of ice." But perhaps a more subtle poke at Dickson's identity the other side of the fourth wall comes is the midst of one of the funniest scenes in the movie. Schmidt and his parents are having dinner with Dickson and his family; when Schmidt's dad asks Dickson's wife where they're from. "Oh me?" she says. "I'm straight outta Compton. But my husband's from Northridge." This is, of course, a reference to NWA's classic gangsta rap album Straight Outta Compton, and a sly one at that. In fact, Ice Cube's casting as Captain Dickson could be considered a meta joke in itself; after all, the man who famously rapped "F*ck Tha Police" playing such a high ranking member of the force of "punk motherf*ckers with a badge and a gun" is an irony that can't be found in the casting of other movies...
