"Fishsticks" is the fifth episode of the thirteenth season of the American animated television series South Park. It serves as the 186th overall episode of the series, and was originally broadcast on Comedy Central in the United States on April 8, 2009. In the episode, Jimmy Valmer writes a joke that becomes a national sensation, and Eric Cartman tries to steal the credit while rapper Kanye West, believing himself to be a "genius", becomes frustrated due to his failure to understand the joke.
"Fishsticks" was written and directed by series co-creator Trey Parker, and was rated TV-MA L in the United States. The episode was conceived from a joke among Parker and fellow co-creator Matt Stone about a fish dressed as motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel, which eventually turned into a joke about Kanye West not understanding a joke about why liking fishsticks made him a gay fish. The way Cartman tries to steal credit for the joke was inspired by real people Parker and Stone have worked with in the television business.
Parker provided the voice of West in the episode and during the song "Gay Fish", a parody of West's song "Heartless". "Fishsticks" received largely positive reviews, and generated a great deal of media attention when West wrote in a blog that the episode hurt his feelings, although he said it was funny and admitted that he needed to work on his ego problem. The episode also spoofed comedian Carlos Mencia, who praised the episode after it was broadcast.
According to Nielsen Media Research, "Fishsticks" was watched by more than 3.1 million households in its original broadcast, making it the most-watched Comedy Central production of the week. The episode received even further attention after West famously interrupted Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech at the September 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, after which Comedy Central reaired the episode four times back-to-back. "Fishsticks" was released on DVD and Blu-ray along with the rest of the thirteenth season on March 16, 2010.
Plot Jimmy Valmer works on writing jokes for his comedy routine while Eric Cartman sits on his couch, eating potato chips. Upon Cartman's request for more snacks, Jimmy remarks that there may be fishsticks in the freezer inspiring a new joke for the routine:
The joke, which plays on the similarity of the phrases "fishsticks" and "fish dicks" when spoken, becomes a hit throughout South Park. When Cartman begins taking half credit for the joke, Kyle Broflovski tells Jimmy he should stand up to Cartman, though Craig Tucker claims that Jimmy should be relieved that Cartman is only asking for half of the credit: as he believes reasoning with Cartman to be impossible. When Jimmy tells Cartman he feels he wrote most of the joke, Cartman fears Jimmy will try to take full credit and asks Kyle for advice on how to deal with Jimmy. Kyle instead says he believes Jimmy wrote the entire joke, and suggests that Cartman's ego is so big that he subconsciously remembers things incorrectly to make himself feel more important. This is supplemented by Cartman's flashbacks to the creation of the joke, which become increasingly inaccurate as the episode goes on, showing him to truly believe that he deserves credit.
Meanwhile, the joke becomes a national sensation. Comedian Carlos Mencia goes on Conan O'Brien's show claiming credit for the joke. The joke is played on rapper Kanye West, who does not understand it. West grows angry when others say he does not get it, and will not listen to anyone who tries to explain it to him, because he claims to be a genius and "the voice of a generation". West abducts Carlos Mencia, who admits he stole the joke to compensate for not being funny and claiming that his "dick don't work" in a parody of Viggo Mortensen's character Lalin in Carlito's Way, but West does not believe him and beats him to death with the help of his hired thugs. Cartman and Jimmy go on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and claim they invented the joke, prompting West to go after them.
Jimmy confronts Cartman, asking how he can live with himself for taking credit for a joke he did not write. They are interrupted by West, who threatens to kill them. By now, Cartman has not only convinced himself he wrote the whole joke without Jimmy's help, but believes he also saved his life from a black widow (in actuality, Jimmy's mother killed it), slew a dragon, defeated an army of "Jewbots", and has powers similar to the Human Torch. Cartman thinks he realizes what Kyle was trying to tell him, but he gets it completely backwards: Cartman believes that Jimmy's ego is the one that is twisted and Jimmy's ego trying to convince itself that he wrote the joke, while not accepting that Cartman wrote the whole thing. West has an epiphany about his own massive ego and is convinced that the joke was a statement about West's own identity. The episode ends with West donning a wetsuit and diving off the Santa Monica Pier into the ocean to embrace his new identity as a gay fish in the form of a music video, in which he happily swims around the sea, kissing and humping random fish.
In an alternate end scene, two members of the US Coast Guard retrieve West's waterlogged corpse from the ocean, having subsequently drowned.
Production
"Fishsticks" was written and directed by series co-creator Trey Parker. The concept for "Fishsticks" began when Parker, fellow co-creator Matt Stone, and actor Bill Hader attended a writers' retreat in Seattle, Washington and they visited a body of water where they could watch salmon jump. They started joking about a salmon wearing an outfit like the motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel, which eventually reminded them of the music video for rapper Kanye West's song "Touch the Sky", in which West himself dresses like Knievel. This led to them picturing a scene with West on a news program, angrily denying reports that he is a fish, shouting "No, I am not a salmon!" During a four-hour ride in a car, Stone and Parker discussed the joke further, and eventually thought of the "fishsticks" joke that featured prominently in the final episode. The duo said they found it hilarious and told variations of the joke back and forth to each other for the rest of the ride. Stone said, "The van driver we hired was just so bummed because we just kept talking about fishsticks, 'You're a gay fish', over and over. We thought it was so funny, and just the fact that he didn't get it."
Although the joke originally stemmed from Evel Knievel and not Kanye West, Parker and Stone said they realized West would probably be extremely humorless about the joke and not understand it, so they decided the episode should revolve mostly around him. After coming up with the idea, Parker and Stone waited a long time before they finally wrote the script because, Stone said, "It just seemed too dumb. Are we really going to do a whole episode about this?". Stone said the jokes about Carlos Mencia were "just a complete afterthought" that came about during the writing process. During one scene in "Fishsticks", Cartman steals credit from Jimmy for a joke he did not write. This was inspired by people Parker and Stone have worked with in the television business who were present for discussions the duo had, then later claimed credit for the idea even though they had nothing to do with it. Stone said, "They truly believe they did it. That's the really sinister part. It's not where they're trying to steal part of the glory. ... They actually fully believe that they came up with it".
Parker provided the voice of West, both in the episode and in "Gay Fish", a full-length song featured at the end of the episode about West's realization that he actually is a gay fish. Parker used a large amount of Auto-Tune pitch audio processing, which he had never used before. Parker said he eventually discovered he had to sing off-key on purpose in order to get the desired effect. Parker said, "You had to be a bad singer in order for that thing to actually sound the way it does". The day after "Fishsticks" was broadcast, the full two-and-a-half minute version of the Kanye West spoof, "Gay Fish", was made available for download on South Park Studios, the official South Park website. The site also featured T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts based on the episode. One featured Jimmy asking, "Do you like fishsticks?". The other features text from Kanye West's whiteboard in the episode: "Fishsticks + Me = Gayfish".
Cultural references
A Kanye West song in the episode about the fact that he is indeed a "gay fish" is a parody of the West song "Heartless", from his 2008 album 808s & Heartbreak and satirizes the rapper's usage of Auto-Tune. When West first confronts Cartman and Jimmy, Cartman mistakes him for Puff Daddy, another rapper and record producer.
Carlos Mencia, host of the former Comedy Central show Mind of Mencia, is portrayed in "Fishsticks" as knowingly stealing credit for a joke he did not write; this is a reference to accusations other comedians have made that Mencia plagiarizes jokes from other people. Mencia's death scene in the episode, as well as his claims that he uses a catheter to relieve himself, are a reference to Lalin, a character who uses a wheelchair in the 1993 crime film Carlito's Way.
Talk show hosts Jimmy Kimmel, David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, and Ellen DeGeneres were featured in the episode. Kimmel is voiced by his real-life brother Jonathan Kimmel, who previously served as a writer and voice actor on South Park. During a fantasy sequence, Cartman says "flame on" and turns into a fiery, flying superhero; this is a reference to the Human Torch, a superhero and member of the Fantastic Four.
Reception In its original American broadcast, "Fishsticks" was watched by 3.1 million overall households, according to the Nielsen Media Research, making it the most-watched Comedy Central production of the week. It had over 1.2 million more household viewers than the second most-watched Comedy Central show that week, the April 8 episode of The Daily Show. In June 2009, "Fishsticks" was announced to be the most watched South Park episode on South Park Studios, the official South Park website, which has all but 5 episodes of South Park to date available for viewing.
Both Kanye West and Carlos Mencia responded within one day of the episode's original broadcast and said they enjoyed the parodies of themselves, although West said on his blog that his feelings were hurt. After the episode was broadcast, Mencia wrote on his Twitter feed, "They just made fun of me on South Park. I thought it was hysterical. Catch the rerun". West wrote on his blog, "South Park murdered me last night and it's pretty damn funny. It hurts my feelings but what can you expect from South Park!". West thanked the South Park writers in his blog entry and acknowledged he has a problem with his ego, but said he was trying to change. Parker and Stone said they were extremely surprised by West's reaction, and felt Mencia was treated far more harshly in the episode than West. Parker said, "It was like, dude, we just said you were a gay fish. What are you talking about? It was so dumb".