In the South Park episode, “Fishsticks,” there is an example of a joke which embodies the scope which Freud expects a new joke to be able to do. In the Introduction to “Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious,” Freud writes “A new joke acts almost like an event of universal interest, it is passed from one person to another like the news of the latest victory.” (Freud 13) This quote attributes an exorbitant amount of power to jokes as independent ideas. It does not connect the joke to any sort of political or emotional revelation it could be making, but separates it as it praises it in its own ability to make a wide impact.
In this episode of South Park, Cartman and Jimmy set out to write jokes, as Jimmy has a dream of becoming a comedy writer when he grows up. When they are served fish sticks by Jimmy’s mother, Jimmy makes the connection between the sound of the word “fishsticks” and the phrase “fish dicks.” From this comes the joke “Do you like fishsticks? Do you like putting fish sticks in your mouth? What are you, a gay fish?” When they start to tell the joke, it is soon accepted to be “the perfect joke.” It gets utilized on the Tonight Show and another comic takes credit for it. The mania around this joke aligns with Freud’s claim. It spreads instantaneously and everyone seems to get it and love it. Everyone except Kanye. When Kanye hears the joke, he does not understand it and becomes violent as a result of his confusion. He ends up killing the comic who takes credit for this joke, and soon resigns to his fate of being a gay fish.
This trajectory is one which Freud sees possible and expected of a good, new joke. In an interview about the episode, writer Bill Hader, tells the story of how it came to be. When the similarity between two phrases was discovered by the writers while visiting a salmon ladder, Trey Parker, the co-creator of South Park, asked “Has anyone ever made this joke before?” After looking it up online and finding out that it was an original idea, the premise of the episode was born. The excitement around creating a truly original joke which creates bewilderment, unexpected connection, and playful judgement, all freudian attributes, strengthens the importance he grants a joke of this kind’s existence.
Fishsticks joke from South Park clip:
https://youtu.be/ZImaUOOieSo?si=Kxz0WWex3WqSI1r_
Bill Hader speaking about the joke for the New Yorker:
https://youtu.be/XdZnGz9CWpU?si=iBtdoiMseW9zKsvg
Sigmund Freud, “Introduction,” Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (New York: Norton, 1960), 5-13.
The notion of a truly original or new joke is interesting, as much of humor is recycled and repurposed through time. I agree that it is exciting when wordplay is created, and the fish sticks joke is also reminiscent of Freud’s ideas about playing with language and form when speaking, and in doing so, creating a unique verbal structure that incites laughter.