Fish Jenga

About

Fish Jenga refers to a joke made in a Sam O'Nella video referring to strange and obtuse laws around the globe. While discussing how the UK's Salmon Act made it illegal to "handle salmon in a suspicious circumstance," O'Nella does a cutaway gag imagining the police busting people playing a type of the stacking game Jenga with fish. The clip became a running joke among the Sam O'Nella fandom.

Origin

On March 25th, 2017, YouTuber Sam O'Nella Academy posted a video titled, "Weird Laws from Around the World." The first law mentioned in the video is the UK's Salmon Act of 1986, which made it illegal to handle salmon in a suspicious manner. After explaining the law, the video goes to a cutaway gag showing a police officer busting two people stacking Salmon in an apparent game of "Fish Jenga." The video gained over 7.7 million views (shown below).

Spread

Over the following years, the clip became a common joke in the Sam O'Nella fandom. The clip was reposted to YouTube numerous times^[1] and was commonly referenced on Reddit. For example, user PriceOfPancakes posted a "35 Moments Taken Before Disaster" parody of the scene in /r/SamOnella^[2] on June 27th, 2020, gaining over 1,300 points (shown below, left). On February 2nd, 2020, Redditor themusicalyeet posted a live recreation to the subreddit,^[3] gaining over 2,500 points (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References