"Spookyfish" is the 28th episode of Comedy Central's animated series South Park. It was originally broadcast on October 28, 1998. It was the season's Halloween special, with a "spooky" theme by having pictures of Barbra Streisand in the screen corners, accompanied with the words "spooky vision".
According to the official website and the DVD set, the episode's title is "Spookyfish". Other sources occasionally refer to it as "Spooky Fish".
Plot synopsis
It is near Halloween in South Park, and as usual strange things are happening. Cartman skips class but shows up at the bus stop to meet the boys when he then get off the bus - wearing a goatee and acting strangely agreeable. He goes on to explain that he missed school that day because he was taking care of his mother, who has the flu. Later, when Stan and Kyle meet up with him to go buy a pumpkin, he is back to his normal obnoxious self (arguably even more so with his new catchphrase, "Hella"). Throughout the episode he continues to switch between these two personas, thoroughly confusing all involved.
Meanwhile, Stan arrives home, where his mother tells him "Aunt Flo" has come to town for her "monthly visit", and the fish she gives Stan as a present begins to murder people in the night. Thinking that Stan had killed them, Sharon buries each of the bodies, while muttering to herself how Stan is handsome and a good boy and slowly losing her sanity. She abducts Officer Barbrady to stop him from taking Stan away. He is kept pantless in the basement. Then the goldfish kills Aunt Flo and Sharon is upset she will no longer have her monthly visits. Stan's dad, however, is glad he no longer has to sleep on the couch once a month. The boys decide to return the fish to its pet store, but not before it kills Kenny too.
Eventually, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny discover that the two personalities of Cartman are in fact two separate people, and Chef says the kinder version of Cartman is from an "Evil Parallel Universe." Realizing Stan's fish is from the same world, the boys track down the Ancient Indian Burial Ground Pet Store where they find the portal to the alternate universe. After returning the fish to the owner and advising him to move his store off the burial ground, the boys leave — just as the Stan and Kyle from the evil world show up. Just as "evil" Cartman is the complete opposite of his normal self, "evil" Stan and Kyle are both the opposite of their normal selves and are thus cruel, wanting to bring their wussy "friend" Evil Cartman back so they can torment him once more. They align with Good-World-But-Actually-Evil Cartman, who is sick of his goody-two-shoes clone and the trio find Normal Stan and Kyle along with Evil Cartman. In the background of the ensuing showdown, evil animals from the pet store are slaughtering people; this goes unnoticed by most of the main characters, although Sharon is now convinced that Stan's fish did really kill the people in the house.
The evil Stan and Kyle have a "gingification gun" which shoots a beam that sends things back to the alternate world. Good Stan manages to get it and sends back the two clones. He and Kyle then decide to use it on Cartman — their Cartman- so they can keep the nice one. Cartman, shocked by this, then attacks Evil Cartman and rips off his goatee. The two wrestle until Stan and Kyle don't know which is which. One Cartman says that Stan should shoot them both, so as to be sure to get rid of the "real" Cartman. Figuring this one to be the kind one, Stan fires on the other Cartman. Unfortunately he chose wrong; Cartman — the mean one from the real world — knew the two would fall for that trick and happily taunts them, much to their anger.
Spooky vision
Comedy Central ran an intensive campaign touting this episode being filmed in "Spooky Vision,” with little explanation, claiming only that it was too terrifying to describe. Before the episode was first shown, it was revealed that "Spooky Vision" entailed every frame of this episode having a still photo of Barbra Streisand in the corners. "Spooky Vision" is no longer used when Comedy Central broadcasts repeats of this episode, but it is still used during repeats in syndication, on the Season 2 DVD, and on the streaming episodes available at the official site.
External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
- Spookyfish at the South Park Studios Episode Guide
- Spookyfish on TV.com (it is referred to as Spooky Fish).
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