Songfacts®:

• An early Beastie Boys song, this one is about the Carvel ice cream cake Cookie Puss, which has cookies for eyes and an ice cream cone for a nose (and on St. Patrick's day, it became Cookie O'Puss). It was advertised in the Beastie stomping grounds of New York City with low-budget TV commercials featuring the voice of company founder Tom Carvel. Like many youths, the Beasties grew fascinated with Cookie Puss and saw his inherent humor.
• The song essentially a prank phone call to Carvel where Ad-Rock of Beastie Boys hectors an employee, asking to speak with Cookie Puss and then trying to order one. They were all teenagers at the time, so these kind of prank calls were on brand. Like many of their interactions of that era, it's one Ad-Rock came to regret. "There's a definitely line between funny prank call and being mean," he wrote in the Beastie Boys Book. "Just randomly calling and cursing a woman out on the phone is not cool."
• Musically, this is based on "Buffalo Gals," an oft-sampled oddity from Malcolm McLaren that showed how scratching, a steady beat, and random vocals can amount to a song. It was a nexus for Beastie Boys, who were a hardcore group at the time but dipping their toes into hip-hop and sampling, which is where they earned their badges. Three years later, they released their debut album Licensed To Ill, the first rap album to hit #1 in America.
• There was a Beastie Girl in the group at the time: Kate Schellenbach, who was their drummer and an original member. The next year, they froze her out of the group when they embraced rap, using a DJ instead of a drummer. Schellenbach later joined Luscious Jackson, which had a hit with "Naked Eye."
• This samples the 1978 comedy bit "My Real Name" by Steve Martin.
• The group released an EP called Polly Wog Stew in 1982, but "Cooky Puss" was their first single. It got some play in area dance clubs, but wasn't a song they could effectively perform live because it's based on a prank phone call.
• The B-side of the single is a song called "Beastie Revolution," which is notable because it was used in a British Airways commercial without permission. The Beastie Boys got a settlement and used the money to buy a drum machine, which expanded their musical vocabulary.