South Park’s latest episode, Fish Sticks, was a bizarre riff on late night comedy, the nature of humor, Carlos Mencia, and Kayne West. It seems to have its origins in Akira Kurosawa, American gangster films, with a dash of theater of the absurd.
Some spoilers are certainly revealed below.
The action starts when Cartman, having alienated all of his friends once again, shows up at Jimmy’s house. While Cartman lolls on the couch eating junk food, Jimmy writes a joke that becomes the most popular in the world. Naturally Cartman takes partial credit for it.
If you don’t get it, just say “fish sticks” real fast until you do.
Alright, it requires a suspension of disbelief that a moderately amusing and smutty joke becomes the hit of the world or that Carlos Mencia would try to take credit for it. It does not take too great a leap to believe that not only does rapper Kayne West not get it, but soon comes to view it as a personal insult. Who would dare, after all, call him a “gay fish?”
After many hours of trying to figure out the connection, Dr. House style, on a white board, Kayne West decides to figure it out gangsta rapper style by going to Carlos Mencia’s house with his posse, trying him up, and beating the truth out of him. The truth is that Carlos Menica stole the fish stick joke, is not himself funny, and lacks a few things besides. Kayne West and his posse beat Carlos Mencia to death, knocking his head off and stuffing his headless neck with fish sticks as a warning not to mess with Kayne West. Parts of the dialogue seem to have been lifted from a pre Aragorn Viggo Mortensen as a paralyzed gangster in Carlito’s Way
Meanwhile Cartman is actually remembering the origin of the joke very differently than how it happened (Rashomon played out in the memory of a single, demented little boy) with scenarios that involve slaying dragons, being assured repeatedly that he is not fat, and turning into the Human Torch to slay an army of “Jewbots.”
The jig may be up for Cartman and Jimmy as Kayne West sees them on Ellen taking credit for the fish stick joke. Kayne West and his posse tie Cartman and Jimmy up and Cartman, seemingly out of character, still takes credit for the fish stick joke, even though it might mean his own death. Kayne West is so moved that he decides that perhaps he really is a gay fish. Kayne West leaps into the sea and, while singing about the joys of being a gay fish, starts to molest every finned creature that he comes near.
No doubt the real Kayne West doesn’t get it either and one hopes that Matt Stone and Trey Parker have a good undisclosed location to hide in until he does.
