Learning Day: All About Singing Fish🌭 (Patreon)

We all remember The Big Mouth Billy Bass, right? Wrong. You’re remembering it wrong. You probably think it was just a silly novelty item that every uncle had in the early 2000s, but it’s so much more than that. Pre-Big Mouth Billy Bass animatronics were for Disneyland, or maybe for very expensive, large Halloween decorations. The early 2000s were the first time the common man could own an animatronic, and the one he wanted was a fish that begs for its life by singing a Talking Heads song, because the desires of man are dark and mysterious.

For most people, that was the end of it. They bought a Big Mouth Billy Bass; it did its thing. Then it did its thing too much. The very thing it was designed for became its downfall. If I walk by that damn fish and it sings that damn song one more damn time, I’m going to…”TAKE ME TO THE RIVER,” the fish begs. It gets volleyball spiked into a trash can, and the story of the Big Mouth Bill Bass is over.

However, for some, the Big Mouth Billy Bass was too much of a revelation in the novelty toy world to ever let it go. There are rumors that the manufacturer, Gemmy, made $100 million off of the product and that’s in early '00s dollars. They couldn’t let this product die, and neither could their competitors, so companies just kept churning out sequels and knockoffs that slowly drifted farther and farther from the original product. There are so many of these things that there’s a website devoted to cataloging all of them, and it’s called The All About Singing Fish Wiki.

There’s a warning for all potential posters on the wiki's front page. Don’t get too crazy, kids. We have very specific parameters for what is and isn’t considered a singing fish. It must be “animals, usually on a base, that have mouth movement and secondary movement that sing or talk.” Does the animal have to be a fish? No, absolutely not, but let’s start with the fish to keep things simple. You, the uneducated, have probably only heard of the Big Mouth Billy Bass, but in fact, father bass gave birth to Big Mouth Billy Bass Jr., Big Mouth Billy Bass Superstar (according to the wiki this model has an anal fin), World Record Billy Bass, Big Mouth Billy Bass Sings For The Holidays, and Big Mouth Billy Bones, to name just a few.

In their vain attempt to create a Billy Bass sequel, Gemmy produced Travis The Trout. Travis had people saying, “Ok, how many of these things do we really need?” Almost immediately.

He’s the exact same thing as The Big Mouth Billy Bass, BUT he sings a much more annoying song, "Doo-Wah Diddy Diddy" by Manfred Mann. You’re probably thinking that Travis wasn’t that popular, but tell that to Christmas Travis. Look him right in the little Santa hat and tell him that, you monster.

Then Gemmy really took a big swing with Cool Catfish (yes, he raps). Cool Catfish was Gemmy’s first foray into original songs with his cool rap. Here’s a little taste of the lyrics:

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“I’m kickin it, groovin', down for the hood

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Got down on the cat like I’m looking good

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Got my gills polished up, a wide-brimmed hat

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No doubt in my mind I’m a real cool cat”

So, obviously, that's cool. As you can see, the fish are getting cooler with each iteration, which is why it’s crazy that Gemmy would stray so far from God with abominations like Lucky Tom, whose packaging promises to “entertain your friends by singing of his misfortune”. In addition to singing two songs, he also says several catchphrases like “I admit it, I’m a redneck” and “don’t look at me that way!” which is one of the most haunting things a fake taxidermy could say to me. Don’t try to trick me into believing the fake taxidermied turkey has achieved sentience, please. I will cry.

Those products are all Gemmy originals. Somewhere, a team of people spent every workday trying to come up with a similar product that was just different enough to legally slap their company's name on. Men have been driven mad by less. I won’t bother you with the Wiggling Willies, or the Sensational Willies, or the Syd Salmons, or the Louie the Large Mouth Basses. I like the ones that strayed from the concept far enough to really be considered adding to the art form, like Big Mouth Larry Lobster, created by Lhi Chinn Industrial.

On the side of Larry’s packaging, it says, “See the surprise on people’s faces when LARRY getting up & moving his mouth to the words of the song.”

I did having a surprise on my face when Larry moving his mouth to the song, but not because of Larry’s movement. By the time Larry came out, I’d seen many, many Big Mouth Billy Bass do exactly what he was doing. However, I’d never seen a lobster waggle an absolutely terrifying human tongue at me. That was new. I don’t need or even want my singing fish knockoffs to be perfectly anatomically correct. However, this mutilation of lobster biology is freakish. Lobsters do not have a tongue, they have mandibles. This is some island of Dr. Moreau shit to me. This pornographic lobster tongue will haunt me.

If you find Big Mouth Larry Lobster as upsetting as I do, you should know that Lhi Chenn Industrial commissioned a special song just for him and then used it on all of their other Billy Bass knock-offs, whether it made sense or not. Probably the strangest case of this is hearing their product, Fossil Dino Fact File Dwarf Allosaur, sing “I don’t wanna go in the cooking pot, because everybody tells me that’s way too hot.” No one is putting you in the cooking pot, Dwarf Allosaur. You are a fossil. That would ruin you.

Which of the knock-off Billy Basses do I find the most upsetting? Thank you so much for asking. There’s one that really made me realize the Big Mouth Billy Bass concept is really just “It would be pretty funny if this dead animal could somehow beg for its life in the form of a jaunty little tune,” and that’s the Rockin Roaster.

The Rockin Roaster has a long intro to his song that goes: “Did somebody turn up the heat? It smells like something’s cooking. Hey, it’s getting hot in here…” as the music builds behind it like he’s about to sing his I want song at the beginning of a Broadway show. Then it pops up, sings “Hot Hot Hot” and thunks backward onto the grill with a dramatic slap, finally relishing the sweet relief of death until the button is pushed once again.

This preoccupation with food torture might seem like a uniquely American thing, but the Billy Bass phenomenon did spread to other countries, which interpreted it in some interesting ways. One knock-off made just for the Chinese market was one of the few with a female singing voice. It was called the Millennium Fortune Fish and sang Gong Xi Gong Xi, a song about the Chinese New Year. In Europe they had Tessy the singing cow, who did a parody of “Happy Together” called “Happy in Leather.” It feels like they said, “Yeah, this is some shit Americans would do,” and produced this specifically to make fun of us.

I would say that no one mounts a cow head on their wall, but America is large and insane, so I’m sure someone has done it, but hopefully just to note their vengeance on the cow that killed their brother. Even though it isn’t a common practice, I can’t argue with a Big Mouth Billy Cow. It makes as much sense as anything else in this universe.

I hope you enjoyed this history lesson on the cultural impact of the Big Mouth Billy Bass. It’s as important a piece of our history as the pen that you tilt to make a lady's dress come off, or Groucho Marks glasses. They’re no whoopee cushion, though- let’s not go crazy- but if you see a dusty 25th anniversary edition Big Mouth Billy Bass in the back of a Canadian Shoppers Drug Mart (the only place they were sold), be respectful. Do not push the button. Let it stay dead.

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