From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“Spookyfish”
South Park episode
A frame showing 'Spooky Vision' being used
Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 28
Written by	Trey Parker
Directed by	Trey Parker
Production no.	215
Original airdate	October 28, 1998
Season 2 episodes
South Park - Season 2 April 1, 1998 – January 20, 1999
Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus Cartman's Mom Is Still a Dirty Slut Chickenlover Ike's Wee Wee Conjoined Fetus Lady The Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka City on the Edge of Forever Summer Sucks Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls Chickenpox Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods Clubhouses Cow Days Chef Aid Spookyfish Merry Christmas, Charlie Manson! Gnomes Prehistoric Ice Man
← Season 1	Season 3 →
List of South Park episodes

"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".

It is near Halloween in this episode, and strange things are happening in South Park. First, Cartman keeps switching between two personalities — one just as annoying as ever, and even more so with a new catchphrase, "Hella"; the other creepily sweet and affable, who is wearing a goatee. Then, Stan's mother's "Aunt Flo" comes to town for her "monthly visit" (a pun on menstruation), and the fish she gives Stan begins to murder people in the night. Sharon buries each of the bodies, while muttering to herself how Stan is handsome and a good boy. 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.

Eventually, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny discover that the two personalities of Cartman are in fact two different Cartmans, and Chef says the kinder one 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 (a reference to Pet Sematary) where it was bought, and discover a swirling portal that leads to the evil world. 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. Unlike "Evil" Cartman (as the other-world Cartman is called throughout the show), they are not kind, but cruel (the opposite of Stan and Kyle from the normal South Park), and want 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; the trio find Normal Stan and Kyle along with Evil Cartman, and get into a showdown. In the background, evil animals from the pet store are slaughtering people; this goes unnoticed by most of the main characters.

The Evil Stan and Kyle have a "gingification gun" which shoots a beam that sends things back to the Evil World. Stan manages to get it and sends back the two clones. He and Kyle then decide to use it on Cartman — their Cartman, though, and keep the good one. Cartman then attacks Evil Cartman and rips off his goatee, and 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.

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 and on the Season 2 DVD.

Stan's evil fish grabs Kenny while the boys are standing around discussing their tactics, then dragged into the fishbowl head first. He is then spun around violently, first with his feet sticking out of the fishbowl; after the water turns red, his feet get pulled in as well. Then, he is ejected from the bowl just in time for Stan's mother, Sharon, to find Kenny lying dead on the ground with one of his eyes missing and his signature rats feasting on his body. She then starts to pull his body across the floor with the rats still feasting, saying, "My god. What a good boy! What a handsome boy!"

• Stan's line: "Yeah you know, I never thought it was such a bad little squash, it just needs a little tender love and care," is taken from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (as said by Linus), in reference to the "twiggy" tree that Linus and Charlie Brown pick up at the Christmas Tree lot for the Christmas Musical.
• Sharon's reaction to the murders, ("I've got such a good boy, Mommy's little angel") is a parody of the 1956 movie The Bad Seed. Kenny's mother showing up drunk, saying "you too would be drunk if your son died", is also a part of the movie.
• Whenever we see both Cartmans at the same time, there is a fuzzy vertical line between them. This is a reference to the split screen/double exposure technique that was used before modern computer technology to 'duplicate' actors who played their own twins or doppelgängers. The left and right side of the scene (both containing the same actor in different roles) would be filmed independently, one after the other. After the two sides were 'spliced together', there would always be this telltale line.
• The scene when Stan is freaked out by his fish staring at him references the scene in "Poltergeist" between Robbie and his clown doll (imagining it is coming closer to him, throwing a shirt over it, the rain and lightning outside).

This episode, like many other episodes of South Park, has multiple references to Star Trek:

• Officer Barbrady shows a picture of William Shatner to Sharon Marsh, reporting him missing.
• The "evil" mirror universe is a direct reference to the Star Trek concept of the same name.
• The "evil" mirror universe Cartman's beard is a direct homage to the mirror universe Spock in the classic Original Series episode Mirror, Mirror.
• The climactic duel between both Cartmans resembles the fight between Captain Kirk and the shapeshifter Garth of Izar in the TOS episode "Whom Gods Destroy." In it, when one Kirk tells Spock to shoot them both, Spock shoots the other one, correctly reasoning that only the real Kirk would make that request. Cartman uses this trick to get the mirror-Cartman zapped back to his universe.
• The goldfish writes "Kill" and other messages on his bowl, reminiscent of the Horta writing "No Kill I" in the TOS episode "The Devil in the Dark."

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Spookyfish

• Spookyfish on TV.com (it is referred to as Spooky Fish).