Story

Description

Cartman decides to help Jimmy with his comedy routine. They come up with the funniest joke of all time. All the late-night talk show hosts pick it up, and the whole country loves it - everyone except for Kanye West, who is immediately offended and confounded by the insinuation that he is a gay fish.

What I Learned Today

"For so long I’ve considered myself God’s gift to the world that I couldn’t take it when people made fun of me. But they weren’t making fun of me. They were trying to help me."

Memorable Quotes

• "Hey man, I'm a GENIUS alright. I'm the most talented musician in the WORLD. If I was a homosexual OR a fish I would know!" (Kanye West)
• "You hear that? NO GILLS. So I can't be a fish. And I'm a genius voice of a generation so I'm not gay." (Kanye West)
• I DON'T NEED ANYBODY TELLING ME PLAY ON WORDS I'M A MOTHERFUCKING LYRICAL WORDSMITH MOTHERFUCKING GENIUS! (Kanye West)
• "Hello Eric, have some chips because you're totally not fat at all." (Sarah Valmer)
• HEY LOOK! ERIC KILLED A DRAGON!!! (Butters Stotch)
• "Look at me maaan...I'm not funny, I steal jokes, my dick don't work, man...I got to piss in a plastic bag, man, I got no dick!" (Carlos Mencia)
• Wow Eric! Incredible! Too bad I'm a dick and I'm gonna take all the credit. S-s-suck it, bitch!
• "Do you like fishsticks?" Jimmy Valmer
• "You like putting fishsticks in your mouth?" (Eric Cartman)

"Yup. And and if I had wheels, I'd be a wagon."

Characters

Kanye West

Jimmy Valmer

Eric Cartman

Kyle Broflovski

Sarah Valmer

Locations

South Park Elementary

Valmer Residence

Behind The Scenes

• "The whole idea started on a Writer’s Retreat, visiting the Ballard Locks in Seattle- which is this place where you can see salmon jumping."
• From Matt: "On the Writers Retreat, we typed in 'fish dicks' to see if anybody made that stupid joke before. NO ONE had."
• From Matt and Trey: "That whole point of the episode was like: Kanye, get a sense of humor. You seem so humorless about yourself."
• According to Trey: "I’d never used AutoTune before, like Kanye uses. And I realized if you can actually sing, it doesn’t work -- it doesn’t do anything to your voice. So you HAVE to sing off-key."

Character Art: Kanye

The art department created a number of different outfits for Kanye. Almost all got used.

Storyboard: Genius

Check out the storyboard from this "genius" scene...

Character Art: Kanye Swimming

A number of specialty poses needed to be made to create this scene with Kanye swimming.

Character Art: Cartman

Cartman got a fresh "perm" character design for his appearance on Ellen.

Character Art: Fish Costume

All costumes on background characters must be designed and approved, prior to animation.

Character Art: Cartman

Check out the character design for this super-cool version of Cartman:.

Character Art: Carlos Mencia

A special sitting position was created for this shot of Mencia.

Script Excerpt

The show is always written a scene or two at a time. This was the first scene written:

Production Art: Gay Fish

Even something as small as a sign has to be designed and approved, prior to animation.

Pop Culture References

• Besides this episode, Jay Leno has made 3 prior cameos in South Park -- in "Funnybot" & "City On The Edge of Forever", and also in a 1997 Thanksgiving Special.
• In addition to Fishsticks, Puff Daddy has appeared several times in South Park -- most notably with his Vote or Die campaign in "Douche and Turd".

Conan got an updated look in this episode. His first cameo was 10 years earlier (above), when he appeared/died in the movie "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut".

Bonus Factoids

• In 2011, Fishsticks was ranked by fans as #6 on their list of all-time favorite #SouthPark episodes.
• Matt & Trey: If someone told us #Fishsticks would be a fan favorite when we were coming up with the idea, we would've been like “no way”.
• Most fans don't realize this episode actually aired WAY BEFORE Kanye’s infamous "Imma let you finish" stage crash at the VMAs.
• Kanye made another cameo as a "recovering gay fish" during Season 17's season finale "The Hobbit".

Season 13

e1 The Ring

e2 The Coon

e3 Margaritaville

e4 Eat, Pray, Queef

e5 Fishsticks

e6 Pinewood Derby

e7 Fatbeard

e8 Dead Celebrities

e9 Butters' Bottom Bitch

e10 W.T.F.

e11 Whale Whores

e12 The F Word

e13 Dances With Smurfs

e14 Pee