Sorry, Doctor, No Custard

January 30, 2014 5:44 PM

So, you have a Creative Agency with the whimsical (or just silly) name "Fishfinger", and you've done work for notable clients like Nike, RedBull, Penguin Books and Hasbro, but you want your agency and your name to go viral. What do you do? You photoshop a bunch of classic movie posters to make 62 Amazing Fishy Films. Yes, The Codfather, Forrest Guppy and the James Bond movie with its namesake are there.

Of course, the true gold standard for fish puns is Kip Adotta's "Wet Dream". Isn't it?

posted by oneswellfoop (29 comments total)

I like puns and all, but ...

Three God -> Cod jokes? "The Haketrix"?? C'mon!

No, this is how it's done.
posted by aubilenon at 5:57 PM on January 30, 2014 [9 favorites]

I am taking deep breaths and trying not to get worked up about the crustaceans and cephalopods
posted by Jon Mitchell at 6:00 PM on January 30, 2014

Fishfinger is Sanjay's second company, eh?
posted by TemporaryTurtle at 6:01 PM on January 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

I am taking deep breaths and trying not to get worked up about the crustaceans and cephalopods

Don't forget anemones, whales, turtles, and clams. 48 of the 62 are about actual fish.
posted by aubilenon at 6:05 PM on January 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

They made that Salmonrai joke twice for different films. I can forgive repeat uses of fish and other sea creatures but they could have gone with fewer repeats of the same pun.

Also the Jason Prawn jokes could have been done for the third one and said "sequel to ..." to get the other two films in. It would have been shorter but finnier.
posted by immlass at 6:10 PM on January 30, 2014

What, no Milt?
posted by mittens at 6:11 PM on January 30, 2014

Turtle Recall is already a book.
posted by Alnedra at 6:14 PM on January 30, 2014

Did they use this as source material?
posted by mollweide at 6:14 PM on January 30, 2014

Why all the hake? A lot of these are actually pretty funny (though I don't think I'd pin the future of my creative agency on this project, it's not exactly like haute concepte stuff).
posted by Flashman at 6:23 PM on January 30, 2014

Don't forget anemones

I'm forgiving that, as "anenome at the gate" is the best one.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 6:27 PM on January 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

I would have given them extra bonus points for "A Man Called Wanda", too.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 6:27 PM on January 30, 2014 [4 favorites]

THAT'S NOT A STURGEON!

It appears to be a lake trout.

Also, I'm actually amazed that there weren't more misidentified fish.
posted by advicepig at 6:36 PM on January 30, 2014

It looks like they did this just for the halibut!

What? What? Why are you guys looking at me like that?
posted by slogger at 6:47 PM on January 30, 2014

Before I posted this, my mind ran through many others they COULD (or SHOULD) have done:

Gulper Fiction
It's a Flounderful Life
A Clockwork Orange Roughy
Black Swai
12 Monkfish
A Fishful of Dollars (and For a Few Dollars Moray)
Piranhas of the Caribbean
No Country for Old Manta
Koi Story
Des-pickeral Me
Humuhumu-nukunuku-apua'a Alone
Raiders of the Lost Shark
The Shark Knight
The Shadshark Redemption (enough shark for ya?)
Oysters, Inc.
Valley of the Dolphins

and Vin Diesel's inexplicable movie franchise Riddick MUST become Haddock
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:49 PM on January 30, 2014

Honestly 40 year old sturgeons aren't a really big deal
posted by pullayup at 7:18 PM on January 30, 2014

The World According to Carp is wonderful.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:21 PM on January 30, 2014

I tried to come up with a good one, but the attempt was a whalure

[pause for laughter]

oh, sorry, I messed it up. What I meant was: A whale ate my family's arms. Wait, no, it was a shark. It ate my shark's arms.
posted by clockzero at 7:22 PM on January 30, 2014

For a second I thought they had Photoshopped the sign in the background of "Fin City" to say "Glub Pecos", but alas.
posted by oulipian at 7:25 PM on January 30, 2014

For a creative design agency, this isn't very creative... or designy.
posted by crossoverman at 8:23 PM on January 30, 2014

They're trying to corner the lucrative dad-joke market.
posted by the jam at 8:58 PM on January 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm going to have nightmares about Edward Scissorclams - horrifying.
posted by jardinier at 9:54 PM on January 30, 2014

Okay so I was thinking about this some more and the puns are so weak and the photoshoppery basically does nothing, and I was thinking that maybe they didn't even try, but now I kind of think that this is some kind of pointed satire or something and I'm just not getting it, because otherwise why would someone do all three Bourne movies with the exact same pun, not even in the right order? And all they changed on the art was the text and then they pasted a couple pictures of prawn in random locations?? And they didn't even change Jason Bourne's name to Jason Prawn???
posted by aubilenon at 10:10 PM on January 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Definitely not as great as the gorgeous artwork of Ray Troll; themes include but are not limited to Octopi Wall Street, Weapons of Bass Destruction, Careful What You Fish For, and If You Must Smoke, Smoke Salmon.
posted by oceanjesse at 1:02 AM on January 31, 2014

The Whaler of Panama?
posted by tilde at 4:47 AM on January 31, 2014

No comment on the posters, but. When I was about 15 one of the first CDs I ever bought was a Doctor Demento compilation, and Wet Dream was on it (along with a hell of a lot of other great stuff, Tom Lehrer and Boot to the Head and They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Ha, and the fish heads song). I remember listening to that whole album obsessively until I could pretty much recite that song. Still my favorite line: "She drank like a... she drank a lot."

Thanks for the memories.

(I still have that CD somewhere. I should dig it out.)
posted by marginaliana at 6:13 AM on January 31, 2014

Shad (1971)
Greater Amberjack City
Porgy and Bass
Whitefish Story
posted by tilde at 7:44 AM on January 31, 2014

Taking a fairly lame idea and flogging it to death via pedestrian photoshopping is not my idea of 'creative'. Perhaps that is why they are having to tout for business, they are no good at what they claim to do.
posted by epo at 8:01 AM on January 31, 2014 [2 favorites]

Perhaps that is why they are having to trout for business, they are no good at what they clam to do.

ftfy?
posted by naoko at 2:43 PM on January 31, 2014

I remember hearing a British comedy radio show, I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, where they went for the world Fish Joke record. The show was a precursor to Monty Python and the Goodies. I can't find the audio online but it still is the high point of fish puns for me.
posted by drinkmaildave at 5:18 PM on February 1, 2014