Bill Hader Reveals Hilarious Origin of ‘South Park’ Fishsticks Episode

Maybe I’m just a huge nerd, but sometimes finding out the inspiration of a funny joke or TV episode can be just as hilarious as the joke or episode itself. Case in point: Bill Hader describing the origin of South Park’s Kanye West/Fishsticks episode.

Hader recently appeared on SiriusXM’s Unmasked with host Ron Bennington to discuss his new film, The Skeleton Twins, in which he co-stars alongside Kristen Wiig. The conversation also touched on South Park and Hader’s occasional contributions to the show’s writing. Specifically, he described the creative process used by series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone:

“They do these things where they get together and they go to a different city where they get away from their wives and their kids and stuff. And they go to a hotel, a nice hotel. And every morning you wake up. You have breakfast. And you talk about South Park. And then you go and you visit whatever’s in that city. You go on a little dumb tour thing and then you come back and you work on South Park and then have dinner and then go home. And it’s a dream. So he said – You should go on the writers retreat. It’s me and Trey and this very funny woman named Erica Rivinoja and Vernon Chatman, is one of the funniest human being on the planet. So, we all went and I went and hung out with these guys.”

It was on this retreat – and one of those “little dumb tour things” – that the fishsticks episode was first conceived, as Hader explained:

“We went to this thing. It’s called a salmon ladder – where you watch the salmon like go up. Trey took us, kind of like a dad. He’s reading the brochure and he’s like, ‘This is really interesting.’ And we’re watching the salmon ladder kind of like – ‘Oh this is funny’. And I’m like, ‘Well, this is interesting’. And then Matt was like, ‘What if one of the salmon was like Evel Knievel just like on a big motorcycle and just like -“aaaaaahhhhh!!’ And we all started laughing. And then somebody was like, ‘Yeah and he’s got a big dick.’ I said, ‘Oh yeah. He’s a fish-dick.’ And then someone went, ‘Fishsticks?’ I go, ‘No, no, fish dick.’ ‘Oh, you mean fishsticks, like you put in your mouth, like you eat: fishsticks.’ I go, ‘No, no, fish dick.’ And then Trey went, ‘No one has ever made that joke before.’ And he’s like Googling it, ‘Someone’s had to have made…like that’s the dumbest joke.’ Fish dick, fishsticks. No one had made the joke before. And that turned into an episode about Kanye West being a gay fish. And that’s how episodes are made. And I’m like, ‘Wow. That’s how it happens.’ It’s kind of like you’re just fucking around and then you come up with a great episode.”

But how did Kanye West get brought into the episode?

“It was like, ‘Who does not have a sense of humor about themselves?’ And it was like, ‘Who would not get the joke?’ And it was Kanye West. And then we had Vernon Chatman…this is why Vernon Chatman is so funny. We go, ‘Okay, so Cartman comes up with a joke, ‘Are you a gay fish?’ And everyone gets the joke except Kanye West. So, he has a press conference going, ‘I am not a gay fish.’ And then his guys come to him and say, ‘Hey, we found the guy who came up with the joke. We’re going to beat him up.’ And they go, ‘Okay.’ So, they found Cartman and Vernon Chatman goes, ‘What if they found Carlos Mencia because he steals jokes.’ So, we did the whole scene with Carlos Mencia and they’re beating him up. And he’s going – ‘My dick don’t work, man.’ It’s the funniest thing in the world.”

Indeed it is. And in this instance, the story behind the story is just as good.

[via The Interrobang]