On April 8, 2009, the South Park episode “Fishsticks” hilariously took aim at rapper Kanye West. The show revolves around a joke written by the character Jimmy Valmer, which hinges on the fact that “fish sticks” sounds like “fish d—ks,” therefore resulting in anyone who admits to liking fish sticks being called a gay fish. Everybody ends up loving the joke except West, who, despite believing himself to be a genius, doesn’t understand it. West concludes that people are trying to tell him that he’s literally a gay fish, and embraces his newfound identity by taking to the ocean and singing one of the most unforgettable songs in South Park history:
Five months later, on September 13, West infamously interrupted Taylor Swift while she was accepting the award for Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. His very important reason for storming the stage and ruining her big moment, as if you hadn’t heard, was to share his unsolicited opinion on who he thought should’ve won. Beyoncé, West felt the need to tell everybody watching that night, had “one of the best videos of all time,” according to him. For context, “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” had just lost to Swift’s “You Belong with Me.”
Comedy Central Once Aired ‘South Park’s Kanye West Episode on Repeat After the VMAs
Seemingly everyone had something to say about the incident at the time. Fellow rapper 50 Cent weighed in by saying, “I wish he would come take one of my awards so I could black his eye.” Pink, who reportedly got in West’s face at the event, tweeted about it the next day, writing, “Kanye [West] is the biggest piece of s—t on earth. Quote me.” Most notably, then-President Barack Obama called West a “jack—” when asked to comment on what happened.
Many were no doubt expecting South Park to have their own take on the situation, seeing as how the “Fishsticks” season resumed less than a month after the VMAs, but West wouldn’t appear on the show again until the following year’s “200.” They finally parodied West’s interruption in the 2013 episode “The Hobbit,” with Pope Francis serving as a stand-in for Swift.
Comedy Central, on the other hand, decided to address things in their own subtle way two days later. In lieu of their regularly scheduled programming, the network ran the “Fishsticks” episode back-to-back with itself on the night of September 15—for two straight hours.
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