Every SpongeBob Season 9 Episode Reviewed!

are you ready kids hey guys pie guy rules here and welcome to every episode of Spongebob Season nine reviewed season nine is interesting for a lot of reasons firstly it took so long to air to put it into perspective season nine was the current season when I started doing these reviews it started airing in 2012 and didn't finish airing until 2017 the main reason for this seems to be the second spongebob movie because they basically halted production Nickelodeon only had the episodes in 9a to air so they decided to hold them and stretch it out over long periods of time so that we wouldn't be completely without spongebob what is season nine a well it's a fan term for the first 20 episodes of Spongebob Season 9 these 20 episodes were aired and made before the second Spongebob movie came out whereas the rest of season 9 was aired after the movie and presumed to have been finished after the movie was finished with the minor exception of Yeti crabs which aired after the second movie but we know was made before and that would make 9bv last 29 episodes of season 9 fans like to split this up because Yeti crabs excluded there was a pretty long gap between 9a and 9b some fans also think that 9b is really good compared to 9a which they consider just average that's not necessarily my opinion I'm just explaining that that's why a lot of people like to split it up and as much as it is frustrating for fans to have to go so long between them I will give Nik credit for making sure there was at least one new episode every year the other thing I wanted to mention before getting into the reviews is the fact that the show changed from standard definition to widescreen HD this was not the first time spongebob was ever an HD though there were two episodes truth or square and it's a spongebob Christmas from previous seasons that were broadcast in HD but this is the first entire season to be in HD of course I will talk about this in detail as it comes up but I want to give an overview of this now because this is a huge format change for the show sure spongebob went from more additional inking in season one to the digital stuff we all know and love now in season two and have gone through a few slight art evolutions over the seasons but none have ever been as drastic as this big switch to HD and it's something you notice right away when watching the season spongebob took its sweet time transitioning into high-definition and I can't blame the people behind the show the thing is when you switch to HD you have to change certain things for instance they had to redo the bubble transition because obviously it just wouldn't fit the screen another thing that they had to redo was the theme song although it took them a while on that the episodes aired in 9a did not have the HD theme song on initial airing and in fact if you bought the episodes on Amazon Instant Video and I assume other places they will also have the old-style opening my point is it's not as simple to just say alright well now we're going to do this in a little bit higher definition certain things have to change and be redone which is a pretty big deal for a show like spongebob that intentionally tries to change as little as possible in the almost 18 years it's been on air I'll talk about the new opening later on in the video when we get to 90 but there are some changes that I want to talk about here like I mentioned the bubble transition looks different and I have to say that I really like it it looks really clear and nice another noticeable change is that ladies like the Krusty Krab or SpongeBob's house just have a much bigger feel to them because more of them can fit in the frame at any given time and although it takes a little bit of getting used to it does look really good and since they switch to HD I've noticed they've done quite a few wide shots shots from far away that show a lot of the background and have the characters be relatively small you notice it right away in the first episode of the season which has to do with extreme sports now that the definition is higher and they have more screen space there's just a lot more area to work with and this is especially noticeable in scenes with plankton now more than ever they can do a great job of showing how much smaller he is and the other characters overall I am very happy with what they have done with this new format change one more thing I have to mention before I get to my usual spiel is at whenever there is a big change to a show either visually or something behind the scenes like the Creator coming back there are going to be people who automatically claim that the show is better or good again it's easy to be suckered in by new episodes after a long time without and a shiny new HD style and artificially bump up ratings of these episodes without giving them the same treatment as all the rest while yes the HD is nice it's important to realize that this is the thing that can happen and not to let your actual judgement get swept away in hype there are a lot of people out there that think season 9 is the second coming of Spongebob and while I'm sure some people have judged it fairly and do genuinely believe that it's likely that some aren't judging these episodes fairly which is fine if you're just a casual viewer but if you want to look at things critically you do have to give every episode a fair and equal shot and now my usual spiel before we begin first of all I have a series called spongy bits which is a singular review or a series of reviews of spongebob episode that I've already covered in season reviews but I go into a bit more depth there if you like these videos you'll probably like those videos so check them out secondly I have a series of videos called square theory wherein I talk about various topics related to spongebob if you hear me saying something repeatedly in these videos then odds are I've probably made a square theory about it if you want to hear more on topics like what makes a Squidward torture episode bad or why Patrick is such a jerk then please check out this series of videos also I will be spoiling everything in these episodes so if you haven't seen some of these season 9 episodes then you might not want to watch this video yet before making this video the only episodes of season 9 I'd seen were Kenny the cat and little yellow book and I'd seen both of those around the time they were both aired meaning it's been a long time and with all that out of the way let's start off with the first episode of my long-awaited review of spongebob season 9 episode 179 a extreme spots spongebob and patrick try to prove they are extreme to an extreme sports group first of all this episode is a really great way to show off the new animation there is a lot of action going on here a lot of different camera angles a lot of wide shots a lot of explode just a lot going on and it does a really good job of showing off what they can do now if nothing else it's a very good-looking episode additionally I like the new characters they got Johnny Knoxville does a great job as Johnny krill and the other two characters are so outrageously extreme they just stick in your head not dead Ted the crazy one and grandma'll granny as the elderly person who also participates in extreme sports so the visuals and the characters are good but that's about where the good things end unfortunately there isn't really much of a story here it's one of those episodes that's just about SpongeBob and Patrick trying to prove that they aren't little babies and that's as far as the story goes there's not really any ups or downs or twists or turns it's just spongebob and patrick trying to prove they're tough to these extreme sports stars and that would be fine if the episode was funny but the humor here is well it's mixed there are jokes that I like like the fact that there's just this inexplicably placed random accent guy and the names of the extreme sports characters are pretty funny too but at the same time there's some humor in this that I find quite dumb the whole pillow and mattress coming to life and swearing vengeance yeah that just felt really out of place to me similarly Patrick licking his brain like an ice cream cone did nothing for me I will give them credit that they are trying and that there is a number of gags in the episode but I didn't find that many of them to be funny especially the joke that makes the title of the episode while I like the guy with the weird accent the whole running thing about Patrick thinking that they need spots to the extreme sports stars and he stings himself with jellyfish and they say hey we have extreme spots now it's a lame pun to begin with but they just keep going on and on with the gag yeah I thought that was pretty dumb and the other problem with this episode is that we've had episodes about extreme sports before pre hibernation week and a life in a day this plot is actually very similar to a life in a day spongebob and patrick trying to prove that they're tough enough to do these extreme stunts I'm not saying the show could never do another episode about extreme sports but the fact that there is very little story here and it's a concept that they've done not once but twice before just makes it feel very bland and if they're going to cover a topic already covered before I'd at least like them to take it in a new direction or deck just be really funny about it but because it's similar to other stories the show has already done before as well as the relative blandness of the story along with the mixed quality humor but really nice looking visuals and entertaining and memorable new characters I say that this rounds out to about a man unfortunately it takes a little more than just pretty visuals and some fun new characters for me to give it a good thanks to the very simple story the episode feels like it drags and when I think back to it although I can remember the characters and the nice visuals I can't really remember anything else about the episode episode 179 bee squirrel record sandy attempts to break every record in the book with no regard for spongebob safety so this episode brought back Sandy's robot army from the episode house-sitting for Sandy it's always interesting to see what elements on SpongeBob actually make return appearances as most characters hobbies and other elements added to the show are usually just one offs with the rare exception I for one welcome the idea of sandy having a robot army think of the stories they could tell maybe Karen would leave plankton and run away with one of them maybe they could malfunction and try to take over Bikini Bottom maybe they'd throw a never-ending stream of pies at Patrick's face the possibilities are endless anyway back to the actual focus of the episode story wise this is very similar to pre hibernation week so yeah that'd be two for two episodes of thus far that remind me of pre hibernation week but it's true sandy wants to do something with spongebob but that something continuously gets spongebob hurt until spongebob has to do something about it and like the episode previous that's about the entirety of the story it's basically just an extended montage of sandy breaking records and spongebob getting hurt along the way and while sandy does break these records in very unusual ways the episode kind of feels a little bit boring because much like the previous one it just doesn't really go anywhere sandy succeeds at everything she does so outside of the one record that she looks like she might actually fail become one there's never any suspense or surprise well okay there's a surprise at the end where it turns out that everything sandy did was completely pointless I wonder how many times sponge job has done this had an episode where the ending proves that the events in the episode were utterly utterly pointless in this case it's fine it's just a silly comedy ending but still it's kind of interesting to think about how spongebob has done this a number of times anyway my point is while it's kind of fun to watch sandy break these records it's just not all that interesting one of the more intriguing parts of the story is that at the very beginning spongebob takes a krabby patty and puts it in his wallet for later and then around the middle of the episode he takes it out to resuscitate sandy after she passes out from eating a bunch of chum while it was cool that they set up something very early in the episode that paid off a little bit later it is a bit weird that this wasn't at the climax of the episode it just happens about midway in in fact the Chum record was probably the most interesting one plankton got a cameo and it was the one record she looked like she might not actually break and did genuinely need SpongeBob's help for I just kind of wish that the whole episode could have been like that add in some suspense give Sponge Bob a real reason to be there as it stands this is another episode that I think is meh it's just kind of boring and though Sandy's actions are amusing I wouldn't say that anything in the episode is particularly funny it's just a pretty middle-of-the-road episode though I have to say I really do enjoy what they did with the name of the record book how it's a mixture of the Guinness Book of World Records and Ripley's Believe It or Not episode 1 a da Patrick man Patrick decides to become a superhero in what is the closest thing to the seasons version of a Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy episode yes this is Ernest Borgnine the last appearance as Mermaid Man and as such there is no actual Mermaid Man episode this season but it is pretty poetic that his last line on the show ever was evil so this episode has Patrick donning superhero attire running around reprimanding people for crimes that Patrick believes they've committed even though of course they're all just innocent people doing normal things this is not a new concept for spongebob they've done this before in shuffleboarding and way back in season ones hall monitor in this type of story you're either going to find Patrick's antics to be really money or really stupid personally I don't find Patrick's behavior to be funny here and just strikes me as annoyingly stupid and that combined with the fact that they've done this story before is not a good combo however I do like the climax of this episode once an actual super villain arrives and Patrick tries to save the day but fails miserably at first that part I think is actually pretty funny there were good gags it was action-packed and it made for a pretty exciting climax but I don't think that saves this episode from being a snowball as cool as the climax is it's only about two minutes of the episode and the rest of it is just kind of dumb Patrick's actions here are obnoxious instead of being funny and charming like SpongeBob's were way back in hall monitor also this episode's beginning is weirdly similar to no hat for Pat with Patrick talking about SpongeBob's hat and how he gets to go have a fun job which really just makes you wish I was watching that episode episode 180 be Gary's new toy arrey becomes obsessed with a red ball oh boy a Gary episode well if you watch my reviews previously you probably know that this isn't going to get a good and sure enough it suffers from some of the problems that other Gary episodes have the biggest problem being just at this field like every other gary episode there's an element of miscommunication with Gary not being able to understand SpongeBob's goodbye arrey obsesses over something just like he didn't treat scary leaves Sponge Bob for another character like in dumped Sponge Bob tries to get Gary to do something like in Gary takes a bath also Gary only interacts with Sponge Bob in the episode and because Gary can't talk certain elements of the story are left to be a bit vague like what exactly is this ball does it actually have powers is it evil is it trying to control Gary or is this all just made up in his imagination but to its credit the episode isn't annoying and it doesn't really have many bad elements it's just really say me and a little too vague on certain points as far as the humor goes it's alright Patrick's brain getting shot out by the laser was definitely more gross and weird than funny but I thought it was funny how Sponge Bob called Gary creepy for making himself look like the ball as well as how Gary gets rid of Sponge Bob by slapping his eye against the garage door opener and SpongeBob's eyes getting knocked out of his head with a decent gag as well another thing I thought was pretty funny was Plankton's random ad on the bench it has really nothing to do with anything but just the way that plankton is lying down and how just out of left field the bench is it's actually pretty funny also his phone numbers apparently 1 808 the episode is about a man it's pretty easy to watch but it's not something I got much enjoyment out of maybe someday they can finally break away from having gary plots that are incredibly similar to previous gary plots but unfortunately this is not that day episode 181 a license to milkshake Sponge Bob must go back to basic training camp to renew his milkshake license so if you didn't know this episode is a big reference to Top Gun I've never actually seen Top Gun but that still was pretty apparent to me and the episode does work as a story on its own in universe we aren't talking about one of these parodies where the characters are suddenly just completely out of character for the sake of the parody and for what it's worth I think the best part of the episode is the 80s montage which is a very direct reference to Top Gun it's fun upbeat and fast-paced another nice thing about the episode was the climax at the end I liked that they gave captain frostymug a weird back story and how the show suddenly turned up the drama but on the flip side of things the entire story was about spongebob trying to get a license and well yes it is very different than a typical boating school episode in a lot of ways it is still kind of sad that they still had to resort to a similar plot device so spongebob does at least reference at the end that he wishes boating school licenses were as easy to obtain as the milkshake one michael mckean plays captain frostymug and his character is okay I wouldn't say he's a very memorable character but he's not a bad one either at first I thought it was going to be a nasty drill sergeant like we've already seen twice on the show luckily they took it in a little bit different direction one thing I didn't like about this story was that it never explains why SpongeBob's milkshakes always come out solid it would have been nice at the end if there was some sort of reveal where it turned out he was putting too much ice in the shakes or he was using too much syrup or something else maybe even something weird and Camille just to explain why he has this specific problem yes they do have the whole milk six come from within line but still it would have been nice to have an actual reason for spongebob shakes turning out this way and also I don't really understand the point of a milk shake license like okay it's silly to begin with but spongebob serves the guy a milkshake at the end of the episode before he gets his license back so is he still allowed to serve milkshakes without the license is it just a prestige thing is it like a system of honor where only the best restaurants have license milkshake people but everyone else can still serve milkshakes I know I'm thinking way too much about this but I think it's a result of this being another story that's really just err bones I know it's spongebob so I'm not expecting too much but I would have liked the story to at least have gone into a little bit more detail because the comedy in this episode really didn't do anything for me yes spongebob failing at making milkshakes and a lot of the weirdness of the milkshake camp was amusing but I wouldn't say that any of it was funny overall I can see some good ideas here with the whole milkshake Academy and the montage and the climax were nice but the episode just wasn't very funny and I feel it just didn't push its concept far enough this one was close to being good but I think it is knit as it stands now it's a cool novelty that I don't regret watching once but don't really care about watching again one interesting note though is that SpongeBob's milkshake license first appeared in the episode yours mine in mind so that episode was probably somewhat of an inspiration for the writers to come up with this one pretty cool to see a one-off gag inspire a whole episode episode 181 be squid baby Squidward suffers from a head injury and revert back to being an infant if it's one thing the show has taught me it's that head injuries are always context sensitive sometimes you might hit your head and become handsome other times you might hit your head and become a baby it really just kind of depends on what's going on in the episode but jokes aside this is not a very good episode first of all I have to point out that it is similar to Rockabye by valve we've already had an episode with SpongeBob and Patrick taking care of a kid and that one was actually funny it's kind of getting ridiculous that almost every episode this season thus far feels heavily similar to another episode but hey that's just what happens when your show goes on for nine seasons the show kind of calls attention to this as well when Patrick is watching TV and ignoring the baby the sounds coming from the TV are the same sounds that came for the TV he was watching in Rockabye by valve if this episode was any good that might be intentionally calling back to a similar episode but because this episode stinks it just serves to remind me of something that I should be watching instead so why does this episode stink like Squidward's dirty diaper well here's the thing it contains a little bit of everything in terms of things that I don't like about Spongebob episodes it's got really infantile humor especially at the beginning with SpongeBob and Patrick acting like babies I mean they've done many childlike and weird things before but straight-up acting like babies out in public yeah that's really weird even for these two the episode also features excessive crying with Squidward and it's similar to another episode Rockabye by valve it's got a bit of squid torture in there too and they top it all off with toilet humor now here's the thing each one of these things in the episode isn't too bad on its own the excessive crying is relatively understandable and even though it is pretty similar to rock-a-bye bivalve it's not a direct copy of the episode it does take it to a slightly different place the squid torture here isn't too bad as at least SpongeBob and Patrick are trying to keep Squidward safe and they do seem horrified when they get him accidentally hurt and the toilet humor is mostly just isolated to one joke about a poopy diaper although that one joke goes on for a while and man do they make it clear that that is a very full diaper my point is just that none of these things are too bad on their own but all together makes for a pretty bad episode and it's not funny I could see the episode trying to make jokes but a lot of it is just really awkward considering its you know adult Squidward in a baby diaper I feel like this sort of concept was a lot less weird and creepy in boo boo gasps yeah it's a snowball it's certainly not unwatchable bad but it's definitely bad though I must admit that there are at least little glimpses of good ideas here and there there are moments in the episode where Squidward is kind of cute and I do like that the problem will solve with the ice machine typically this sort of thing is just solved with more blunt trauma to the head but instead of going down that route they went with something that does make somewhat logical sense although in an obvious cartoony way in that ice usually brings down swelling oh and if you're curious as to what that little purple leg down there means I wouldn't blame you because it's been a while but hey the my leg gag is back sort of a character runs away saying my face my face also my leg but mostly my face and he's voiced by mr. Lawrence even though it's not a direct use of that one particular my leg clip that is pretty clearly a reference to the my leg gag which is pretty cool I just wish it had done in a better episode episode 182 a little yellow book Squidward reads SpongeBob's diary so believe it or not this episode has a great significance to the every episode of Spongebob reviewed series by around March of 2013 I had done a number of spongebob reviews of individual episodes and had concluded that all of the newer episodes of the show were just not good after doing this though I decided that was pretty unfair of me to generalize a bunch of seasons of the show like that so I wanted to check out one of the latest episodes and wouldn't you know it little yellow book was on Hulu and this was the last episode of Spongebob I watched before embarking on this journey to review every episode yes I thought this episode was actually pretty bad but it did make me want to know what had happened to spongebob how we got from season three and four all the way up to this and a few months later I premiered the every episode of Spongebob Season one reviewed video but enough about me let me talk about the episode so the first thing I'm going to point out is that there actually were jokes in this episode that I like the I had a brother once joke the stealing a hairpin for mr. krabs and his hair going all poufy the old guy that fell in the toilet I liked all three of those gags but those were definitely not funny enough to save what is a slow ball good food otherwise there's a few things I don't like here but I'm going to start with SpongeBob's weird secrets why does Sponge Bob turn into a chicken when he sees plaid and why does he get naked when he hears the Bikini Bottom national anthem what is the reason for these things I mean I know sure spongebob wacky weird whatever but they made him pretty dang weird in this episode it didn't make me laugh it just kind of makes me think that there's something seriously wrong with Sponge Bob then there's the whole civilians of Bikini Bottom thing so when Squidward is making fun of Spongebob and reading his diary all of the civilians of Bikini Bottom were laughing right along with him and Sponge Bob even comes out at one point and Squidward shows off the weird things he can make Sponge Bob dude knowing what he knows from the diary so the Bikini Bottom might clearly see Sponge Bob and know it's him but yet somehow they act surprised that it's spongebob later and throughout the rest of the episode they throw a giant hissy fit that Squidward read SpongeBob's diary now look I get that this is supposed to be ironic it's supposed to be like haha they're singling out Squidward even though they're just as guilty but it's just way too much here they don't do it in a funny way they just do it in a really nasty and hypocritical way especially Patrick and yes Squidward does call Patrick out on this but that's about all the punishment that Patrick's going to get and Patrick is supposedly SpongeBob's best friend I don't like these elements but really what I think makes this story fail is that it goes exactly nowhere Squidward reads the diary and embarrasses spongebob but then after that all it is is Squidward just repeatedly being yelled at by the key bottom I inexplicably losing his house and being put in stockades because he dared read a diary I don't really have a problem with SCOOTER being punished for doing a bad thing and I also don't have a problem with the show treating diary reading as if it's some serious crime but what I do have a problem with is that that is what the rest of the episode is Squidward doesn't change or learn no one tries to read Squidward's diary there's no interesting turn here it's just people being down on Squidward yeah he deserves it but no this doesn't make a good story and even when you think he might change his ways of course he doesn't because I gotta go with the stupid comedy ending of herder he's still reading Diaries it's also one of those things where it feels like this episode would be a lot more interesting if it were actual characters calling out Squidward not just random background fish like if sandy was there and continuously harped on Squidward and made him feel guilty or tried to get revenge for spongebob by reading his diary or if mr. Krabs had gone a little bit further he does try to make Squidward feel bad but then after that he disappears from the episode if you compare it to something like fools in April school bird feels bad and tries to apologize and the conflict of the episode is that Squidward has a hard time apologizing to spongebob there's a conflict there there's something actually happening here nothing of the sort happens Squidward half-heartedly tries to apologize for all of half of a second but it doesn't even stick and SpongeBob's whole oh well I published the book and everyone seemed to like it and everything is good now it's so fake feeling with how upset he was earlier it just means that spongebob takes a random left turn just for an even bigger take that at Squidward's I'm not upset because scored got punished for his actions the story bothers me because it goes nowhere and it just spends a very long time calling out Squidward it's just a really negative episode the first part is spent making fun of spongebob and the second part is putting Squidward down there were a few jokes I laughed at but nothing that redeems the rest of the episode oh and by the way spongebob previously had a diary in boating school and gone 180 to be bumper-to-bumper mrs. Puff's takes spongebob to an abandoned Road to teach him how to drive so right off the bat one of the things I liked about this episode is that mrs. puff actually tries to teach spongebob and acknowledges that it's his own anxieties that's preventing him from being able to drive so while it's a bit of an unusual plan taking him out to just in abandon highway in the middle of nowhere is actually a good idea and although yes she definitely wants to get rid of spongebob she's not anywhere near as harsh as she was the last time she was featured it does feel like they put her back in the place of being a teacher who's just frustrated with having a student who is unteachable which by the way spongebob was also declared unteachable way back in mrs. puffier fire on the side of calm for this episode it is relatively light there are gags there that I like like the cops sunglasses and mustache coming down from his helmet as well as some of the gags about the runaway boatmobile both in the beginning of the episode and towards the end of the episode but it's certainly not a joke heavy episode there are also two elements that felt like they went on for a bit too long first of all there's the whole beavis and but fish section which felt relatively out of place like it should have been something that was just kind of a one-off gag and not something that should have continued throughout the whole scene and additionally SpongeBob's little hypnotize freakout sequence went just a little bit too long for my taste but the story is good especially the climax of the episode I think it is a really action-packed and fun one especially in HD being able to show a 10 lane highway all across the wide screen really looks cool and by the way I love that the show still uses traditional animation on their cars instead of using CG like a lot of shows these days in fact a lot of the aesthetics of the episode look really nice like the desert area or the parts of SpongeBob's freakout sequence it is another episode that I think really utilizes the HD well and the episode has a good energy to it because a lot of it is spent inside of a boat mobile particularly and out-of-control boatmobile it just keeps the episode moving and makes it very action-packed and story-wise it's cool that they set up mrs. Puff's ankle bracelet earlier in the episode and that paid off at the end and I think it was a clever way to send her to jail and null and void SpongeBob's test so yeah the story is good it's action-packed it looks really nice it's a little bit light on humor but there are jokes there and even though there are two parts that would have trimmed down overall this is a good episode finally right oh and one interesting note is that remember way back in no free rides when inside of mrs. Puff's house there's a picture of her being surprised at the door right as she walks in the door being surprised it's basically a picture on the wall of the same scene that's happening live by the way in that video I mistakenly call it the SquarePants family's house when it's actually mrs. Puff's well they brought that gag back for some inexplicable reason and inside mrs. Puff's house yet again is a picture of her sitting on the couch while she is sitting on the couch it has one of the strangest and most surreal gags in spongebob history and they decided to bring it back that's actually pretty cool 183 a geek an urchin the Krusty crew and plankton must team up to catch an urchin in the Krusty Krab I'm really amazed that it took nine seasons for them to do a story about some sort of pest problem in the kitchen sure the Krusty Krab has had fungus before but this is just a story idea that seems kind of obvious and I don't mean to say that it's bad it's just a good fit for a show about a guy who works at a fast food joint one of the things I really like about this episode is the camaraderie between four characters who are kind of enemies with each other flanked in working with Krabs good weird working with Sponge Bob it's not stuff you see super often so it's cool to see all four of them coming together to defeat a common foe and there's never any backstabbing by plankton though Krabs kind of does leave them for dead another thing I really like is the urchin itself I love how it's animated I love its big cartoony tongue I love its purple outline I love how fast it moves though there has been urging Zahn the show before particularly in nature pants and in a lot of the backgrounds on rocks we've never really seen this much of any given urgent and I like the redesign here instead of going with just a black dot with some lines sticking out of it and I like the comedy in the episode especially involving the urchin I like it bouncing off of Mr Krabs's tongue bouncing all around Sponge Bob almost getting eaten by several Krusty Krab customers it's a weird crush on plankton it's all pretty funny it's a good episode there's a lot to like here and I think it's been the funniest episode of season nine yet the only thing I don't like about it is the ending and that's because it's just one of those really obvious endings and it goes on for a bit too long yes spongebob when all the way around the world and ended up back at the Krusty Krab where he releases the urchins again duh this gag has been done before on the show but that's just the ending and that's the only bad thing I can say about the episode also of note is that this is the first episode that had the HD spongebob opening it didn't have it on first airing but a rerun of this episode was the very first one to have it though I will be talking about this more in season 9 be because technically it didn't premiere until we were already into season 9b episode 183 be squid defense sandy and spongebob chief Squidward carrot egg a for self-defense so the very first thing I have to point out is that this episode is very similar to karate star a new character learns karate then uses it to do bad things and while the details of the story might be different the same basic concept is there even the title guard is similar it makes me wonder if there's going to be an episode in the future where plankton learned karate off screen and crabs needs to learn it from Sandy and spongebob so that he's able to fight plankton in some sort of big competition call it the karate crab or something I don't really have a huge problem with them reusing the X character learns karate episode but though it's not that big a negative it's not a positive either and besides being similar the story itself is very predictable I was really hoping that the tough guy was going to turn out to be an actual tough guy but no of course it was just a wacky misunderstanding and the episode does the whole karate kid' thing of you gotta master these mundane tasks to be good at karate but it really doesn't put too much of a fun spongebob e twist on it it's just what we're doing chores and the episode isn't even funny the only thing I kind of sort of laughed at was tangled Squidward where he gets all his tentacles stuck to him and spongebob saying he should have named Gary scary if only because of how lame a joke that was I really didn't think this at first but after dissecting each part of the episode I have to say involving a light one to be sure but there's so little comedy the story is predictable and there's no fun twists on it at all it's just an episode that really adds nothing I would much prefer to watch karate star I should point out that this is finally a sandy and Squidward episode but that's somewhat ruined by the fact that a spongebob is there the whole time and be they don't really play with that at all not like in perfect chemistry where they kind of have fun with the pairing of plankton and sandy here they just kind of treat it like it's a normal thing that Squidward and sandy hang out it's definitely not the buddy cop movie that I had imagined though there is crime fighting in it without that stupid twist ending this would be at least a man but because it's there it deflates a lot of the tension and intrigue that was happening in the beginning of the episode once you know that he's never in any danger or you just assume it like I do because it's super predictable the episode just becomes tedious like it's building up to a non-event I wanted to like this episode it's got Squidward and eat together there's a decent justification for why scooter wants to learn karate and I'm usually a sucker for these karate episodes anyway but it's just so bland it's not one of those super awful episodes with really obvious bad things in it but there's really very very little here that I actually enjoyed 184 a jailbreak flankton and his fellow inmates utilized the power of chum to break out of prison fun fact Plankton's prison number is six five five three two one and that would be your useless information of the day it's very rare that we get to actually see plankton in jail that hasn't happened too many times on the show and the only one I could remember off the very top of my head is the beginning of crabby Road but it makes sense like it is a criminal and presumably Krabs occasionally called the cops on them and it's refreshing to see a different location sure we've seen prisons on the show a few times before with doing time being the most obvious but definitely not very frequently and it's nice to have another episode set there it's also pretty cool that all the criminals idolized plankton I did not see that coming I expected everyone to hate plankton it's a nice subversion and it really does help us see that despite his numerous failures plankton does have street cred in the seedy underground and the reason is pretty funny as well the fact that everyone just inexplicably uses Chum to commit all their crimes because it's such an awful awful substance so yeah I like the story and it's a decently funny episode as well the guards all filling in the wall and then finding out they're stuck like that as well as a lot of Plankton's lines like are we at the airport when it is a fist heading his way with an airplane sound effect playing that's not a super funny episode but it's funny enough it's a good episode it's a very different feeling plankton episode and it's a lot of fun with a lot of really creative elements oh and it's also really cool to see all the designs of the criminals I like that they went with an assortment of creatures instead of just making them all generic fish oh and while I'm on the subject apparently plankton got over his fear of whales but I really don't think anyone would mind that in episode contradicts the events of one course Neil episode 184 be evil spatula like didn't use the mechanical spatula to trick spongebob into revealing the formula so we've already had an episode where spongebob loses a spatula and has to get a new one that turns out to be a jerk though there are superficial comparisons between this and all that glitters they're really not that similar and they go in very different directions however the and this goes in is just not very good Plankton's plan is complicated sure but it's not like it's really clever or that interesting like to disguises himself as something to earn SpongeBob's trust and trick the formula out of him they've done that a lot and the way plankton is foiled is just really anticlimactic plankton has this crazy elaborate plan and all that it needs to be ruined is fun Bob mentioning the spatula belong to plankton plankton doesn't do anything crazy to reveal himself spongebob doesn't figure it out no all it takes is Krabs hearing that the spatula was for plankton which I mean yeah you'd be very suspicious if it was from plankton but that's a really lame way for his plan to be foiled though mr. Krabs tricking plankton into using an explosive material to brew the formula and the subsequent explosion was actually a pretty good way to end the episode and I especially like the moment that plankton realizes that the jig is up they have a nice little beat before the explosion where you could just see unplugged his face that he knows he's in trouble as far as other things I liked there's really not too many I do like the setup at the beginning with mr. Krabs and SpongeBob washing the dirty money because it's just a very interesting and unique lead-up to the episode that makes sense for mr. Krabs and there's also a moment of the Krusty Krab customers being ravenous which was pretty good otherwise everything else about it is standard not necessarily bad just standard this isn't a great story and there's not really too many comedic moments but I also wouldn't necessarily call it bad it's just me to be honest I wasn't that far off from calling this a scum Bob it is similar to a lot of other plankton episodes but there were just enough little amusing things in there for me to bump this up to the man and I really don't have much to say beyond that other than the fact that I found it really gross that spongebob has no problem using a spatula to clean Gary's litter box sure he's done some unhygenic things on the show before with food but that one just strikes me as really gross and not too much later he uses it as a toothbrush as well episode 185 it came from goo lagoon plankton hijacks a mysterious goo blob to use as a weapon after how great season eight did with its multiple science fiction inspired episodes it was nice to see that season 9 brought it back in special form although if you think about it if the Sponge Bob Christmas is actually a pretty science fictiony plot as well with mysterious substance that everyone thinks is super harmless and ignores the scientists expert opinion until that blob turns evil well I guess it doesn't really turn evil so much as Planck it is and he started piloting the thing anyway this is a really fun episode I like what they do with messing around with the goo in the beginning SpongeBob and Patrick bouncing around on it's good we're using it as hair just all sorts of little wacky things they do with it it's a really nice way to start off the episode there's also a nice build-up to the mystery of what these glue blobs are and exactly what they can do when Sandy starts going on about how they're dangerous and they could potentially destroy all of the candy bottom which ultimately turns out to be a very big exaggeration the worst the goo blob does is just make a big mess everywhere but still it provides a lot of pension and excitement in the episode which leads into a fun chase and Sandy and spongebob coming up with ways to try to save Bikini Bottom from this goo blob it's really got all the pieces action fun excitement tension I wouldn't say it's quite as good as the krabby patty that ate Bikini Bottom or planted as a jellyfish but I do think it is a good episode it's always cool to see sandy taking charge and kicking butt heck even Patrick is actually kind of funny in the episode sure he's stupid but in a more childish and less mean way on the comedy side of things it's not a really funny episode but there is a nice amount of jokes in here and they're spaced out nicely between the action and the fun of messing around with the goop jokes like the goop coming out of the water and into the water Patrick calling his new friends sponge blob sandy and SpongeBob stealing Squidward's bicycle only to take it like three feet to her tree dome also I'm amazed that this episode didn't end spongebob absorbing the big blue blob but in this case it was solved with bubbles so I guess I'll amend my statement and say that everything is solved with absorption and bubbles the biggest failing though I think is the ending the fact that the goo bubble pops and it turns out that it just covers everything and goo after all the build-up I was expecting I don't know maybe a little bit more I know it's spongebob and I know that covering everything in goo is a big threat to Bikini Bottom but still after all the efforts spent trying to make sure this thing doesn't pop having it just pop and then not be that big a deal yeah it's a bit of a letdown this another one of those comedy endings and I get why they decided to do it this way I don't think it's awful but I do think it kind of cheapens the episode to show the bubble actually popping and having it not be that big a deal episode 186 a safe deposit Krabs mr. Krabs gets trapped in a bank fall this episode feels like a whole lot of wasted potential mr. Krabs being trapped in a bank vault and spongebob and patrick having to break in to rescue him both sound like good ideas but they don't really do much with either of them and i guess it's because the episodes attention is split between too many things they have to set up what the bank is in a commercial and then there's a bit of mr. Krabs trying to get into the bank and getting kicked out repeatedly so by the time he finally gets trapped in the bank fault and then spongebob finds out about it there isn't really much time for either of the two stories to play out SpongeBob and Patrick breaking in amounts to basically two different methods trying to go into the roof which leads to them being ejected from another building and them trying to break into the front door when the manager opens it up and that's it it's not like there's a bunch of plans it's not like either of these plans are really that interesting or fun or funny there's just not much to it and then as far as mr. Krebs being trapped in the bank vault he makes a woman out of money and starts dating her okay and then all of a sudden it transitions to him thinking that he's trapped on some sort of deserted island with her and there's a giant money eating monster and the islands on fire and he starts going insane this is because according to the episode mr. Krabs is running out of oxygen but I don't get why they had to go with this deserted island thing was there so little ideas for what to do with mr. Krabs in the bank vault that suddenly have to transport him to another deserted location why not have him get lost inside a jungle full of money or maybe he loses that one penny that he cared so much for at the beginning of the episode amongst all the piles of money and has to go searching for it maybe learning some sort of lesson about sentimental value over financial value or something I don't know there's a lot of ideas that they could have done with this but they really just don't do that much and the ending is disappointing the solution is that the bank manager just lets Spongebob in and frees mr. Krabs SpongeBob's attempts to break in mean apps nothing and Krabs doesn't really do anything to try to escape a situation so from a story perspective not a lot actually happens as far as things I liked about the episode I like that pearl tells Spongebob to just call mr. Krabs because it's such a simple mundane solution and it makes a lot of sense it's especially great with pearls reaction and acting like this was incredibly obvious also mr. Krabs is but sticking out of the safe-deposit box was kind of funny I guess that's really all I've got it's not in abysmal episode but it just is so lacking in every way it's not funny the story seems to be to split up and it just doesn't run with its premise I'm going to say it's a superb suit this is another one that I think was pretty close to man because I don't strongly hate it and it's not like there's any elements that are really bad or really annoying or really frustrating it's just an episode that does not come together in any way if they had focused on SpongeBob and Patrick breaking in then yeah they probably could have told a better story or if they had just focused on mr. Krabs inside the vault then you probably could have done a lot with that too but the episode just doesn't have that much focus and really above all else it's just boring week story week comedy and I found myself just not really caring oh and fun fact this is pearls first appearance in season 9 but it's definitely not her most major appearance 186 be Plankton's came plankton adopts a pet amoeba hey we're spot oh there he is out of all the characters that had personality changes after the first spongebob movie plankton has definitely been affected the absolute least he's stayed pretty in character and fun the whole time however the one downside of plankton is that almost all of his stories revolve around him wanting to steal the formula and though there's been many clever twists on that over the years and of course I don't want them to stop doing those episodes altogether it is always nice when they do something a little bit different with the character like the time he traded places with Krabs just to see what it would be like or whenever he has to team up with Krabs it's always really refreshing and fun to see something like this in episode that yes does reference stealing the formula but for the most part is just about plankton finding a different hobby and doing something else I mean heck the beginning of the episode is basically about how plankton has nothing else going on in his life and SpongeBob's suggesting he gets a hobby and I think that his character works really well here just because he's evil and steals the formula doesn't mean that he can't have a genuine relationship with a pet and plankton works as very sympathetic in the episode without feeling like he's out of character at its heart it is just a basic boy and his dog story plankton learning the ins and outs of caring for a pet the pet runs away plankton desperately tries to find the pet and then winds up in danger himself and the pet saves the day it is very simple on paper but the episode works so well thanks - plankton being a fun protagonist and how sincere and sweet he is in the episode as well as how likeable this little amoeba spot is they made him really cute and I like all the little bits they have with him being tiny and getting squished and being able to multiply itself to get bigger so they could have just gone with a worm or something but this works out so much better because it is original to the show but it's not just about how likable the characters are here it's also about how funny the episode is a lot of the stuff at the beginning with everyone thinking mr. Krabs is torturing a baby when it's really plankton in a mechanical suit that's actually really digging funny as well as plankton accidentally crushing spot and thinking he killed them these are more the jokes for sure but they're funny it's a basic story that just works really well thanks to how likeable and enjoyable the characters are how it puts a character in a situation we've really never seen before and just how funny it is it's a very good episode and I think it's really great that they sell us on this idea that plankton really does care for this pet to the point where even when spot ruins his chances of getting a krabby patty the most plankton does is want to punish him for about five minutes also I like that there really isn't much of a twist in the episode yes there's a little one with it turning out that spot was on Plankton's cornea the whole time but there's no like giant twist where spot was actually just a mechanical pet designed by plankton to just steal the krabby patty formula or that this whole thing has been a ruse to try to distract spongebob or something stupid like that I'm glad that they did keep the focus of the episode on plankton getting an actual pet that he is genuinely bonding with and not just using as a means to an end I would much rather have a genuinely sweet ending and episode overall like this than them trying to do some sort of stupid comedy punchline at the end making plankton unlikeable for the sake of jokes oh and fun fact apparently spongebob mentions losing Gary for eight minutes I was really hoping it was going to be a reference to have you seen the snail but instead they decided to go with a gag of how comedic Lee short a time it was that spongebob lost Gary 187a don't look now spongebob Patrick gets spooked by a scary movie so this episode is basically split into two parts there's the whole setup with SpongeBob and Patrick watching the movie walking home getting scared and annoying Squidward and there's the second part where scooter decides to dress up like the villain from the movie and torment SpongeBob and Patrick as far as the first part goes it's a little dry I would have liked more comedy and a little less screaming though the screaming here isn't that bad and totally justified in story and there could have still been a little bit less of it and it feels a little bit drawn-out with them seeing the movie twice having spongebob walk Patrick to his rock and then Patrick walks spongebob back to his pineapple it does just feel a little bit slow and a little bit too much like it's setup especially because there's been plenty of other episodes with spongebob and or Patrick being scared of something like when spongebob was scared of the horror movie in Crabbe Borg know what I see as the real draw of this episode is Squidward essentially becoming a slasher villain and scaring the ever-loving car out of SpongeBob and Patrick on the surface this sounds a lot like graveyard shift but in that episode it was just good were telling a scary story in this one he's become the scary story and I really like that aspect I think this is something that makes sense for Squidward it's understandable that I'd be annoyed by SpongeBob and Patrick screaming all over the place but he obviously takes it way too far and in my opinion he gets what he deserves at the end especially with the extra irony that spongebob and patrick are trying to save Squidward from this villain there are a few decent gags in the episode like how over the top of the kissing scene was and the fishhook digging in Patrick's nose which is actually a surprise because I'm usually not a big fan of nose picking gags but something about the way this one played out actually worked pretty well but overall it's not a very funny episode I think it rounds out to be about a man my favorite part of the episode was when SpongeBob and Patrick were trying to rescue squid from the fishermen what makes that scene extra fun is that they play the now that we're men music from the Spongebob movie as SpongeBob and Patrick decide to become heroic and it actually works as a really nice motif I wish they would do this in other episodes and have it play whenever SpongeBob and Patrick did something particularly brave however the dumb thing about this is that I think they played the music not because of its ties to the spongebob movie but because it's kind of a football anthem and SpongeBob and Patrick we're making a football play at the time I really hope they went with it for direct reference but knowing how this show is I doubt it and unfortunately I think this was just a really nice coincidence it's an OK episode I think it's worth checking out once to see Squidward's appearance but there's not really enough here to warrant a rewatch episode one 87b seance SHM Aeons spongebob summons ghosts that refused to leave the Krusty Krab it's always ghosts with this show man why can't we get like an episode with a mummy or a vampire or a swamp monster or something why is it always ghosts and this one doesn't even have the Flying Dutchman in it so yeah that's my first gripe it's similar to other ghost episodes it reminds me a little bit of ghost hosts and they use the music and at least one ghost design from cool fools I wouldn't say it's a ripoff of any of the other episodes per se but it is a little bit similar additionally outside of the very opening I didn't find this episode funny at all yes I did like the really cheesy weird soap opera about ghosts and toilet-papered but that was about it I don't know maybe spongebob reading from the sacred text of a mustard label was kind of funny as well but that's being pretty generous so it's not funny and it's another ghost episode do I have anything good to say about it well I like mr. Krabs kicking ghosts but at the end I wish there was a little bit more of that but that was still pretty cool and the story itself is decent I like the setup and if they introduced the concept of a sounds and give spongebob a good reason to do one all in pretty short time and in fact the whole episode is actually paced pretty well there wasn't really any point that I was bored did I like it no but I also can't say that I disliked it either hmm if only I had a rating for that oh yeah yeah and in terms of individual aspects of the episode I find a lot of them to just be middle-of-the-road the character of rusty and his weird sandwiches are just a I don't find them to be funny or good I don't find them to be bad or too boring either though those sandwiches are definitely really gross 188 a Kenny the cat spongebob idolizes an athlete with the secret so this episode is weird it's weird because spongebob is not known for taking on real-life issues sure they might have morals every now and again but it's usually the generic be kind to others sort of message it's not the type of show that I would really expect to cover the interesting and complex issue of athletes cheating because yeah that's what this is a metaphor for if the episode had just been about an athlete cheating then I wouldn't say that it's being particularly topical or referencing real-world issues but because they go into the whole argument of well even though I'm cheating I'm making a lot of people happy and a lot of people look up to me so it's okay and it's a good thing it definitely seems like they're trying to specifically reference a real-life issue here but of course it just takes the side of cheating is wrong and cheating is bad so although it is kind of topical it's not like it's really too political or complicated anyway about the quality of the episode itself of course I'm going to point out that this is not the first time that spongebob has idolized over a character who turned out to be less than a hero first there was Kevin from I'm your biggest fanatic and weirdly enough patrick also called spongebob out for his creepy obsession in this episode as well as that one it's another one of those cases where it's not a huge deal of this episode is similar because it is taking in a different way whereas kevin was a horrible jerk to spongebob okay the cat is just a dirty cheater but though it may not be a ripoff the episode is just may for reasons I'm about to explain first of all the episode is very poorly paced there is a lot of buildup and it does make sense to have it be like that to an extent because you do want to build up how much spongebob likes Kenny but at the same time because they built it up so much there wasn't really much time for the main conflict of the episode to actually play out he arrives at the Krusty Krab spongebob almost immediately finds in cheating they have a discussion over whether or not spongebob is going to tell sandy busts him anyway and then BAM the episode is over Kenny being revealed as a big cheater really didn't actually amount to much a bunch of people just walked away disappointedly there really should have been maybe a little bit more to it than that if the setup wasn't so long then they could have definitely put something else there nextly there's the issue of comedy and that the episode isn't very funny yeah okay this may be one or two jokes I like like spongebob breeding a bunch of water into Squidward or mr. Krabs thinking that Kenny's been inside his wallet but most of those jokes are at the beginning and the episode kind of stops being funny after that which leads me to my next issue it's a little bit melodramatic when spongebob discovers Kenny's big secret and then has a passionate discussion over whether he should reveal it or not the show takes it just a little bit too seriously for my liking the episode needed to be more comedic in general but those particular scenes should have been a little bit more comedic to lighten the tone and this is part of the reason why I feel like this episode was trying to be like a ripped from the headlines type story but because it's spongebob which doesn't have any layer of complexity it doesn't really do that good a job at that I don't mind there being a more serious conflict but please at least throw a few jokes in there to lighten the mood but after saying all of that I find myself in the same position I was when talking about sans schmao in that although it doesn't really do many things right I can't really say it does much wrong either sure it might not be pasted out in the greatest way but it did hold my attention through and through and it was interesting to see an animated cat on the show for the first time plus his marquee does a pretty good job voicing him and I do like that very first scene which like I said had some decent jokes in there and that's why I believed it to be a mess it has a few problems and does a few things right and I do especially like Patrick being creeped out at SpongeBob's obsession because he voiced exactly what I was thinking episode 188 be Yeti crabs a snow monster terrorizes the Krusty Krab before I get into the episode I want to point out that this episode aired exactly one year after Kenny the cat and those are the last two episodes of season 9 a it took them a whole year to air two episodes like I said at the beginning I understand why Nickelodeon helped this one because they probably weren't entirely sure when the new episodes made after the second spongebob movie would actually be finished so holding this one to make sure they had it just in case the ratings for Nickelodeon dipped really low and they needed to air it was probably a smart idea anyway as far as the actual episode goes it basically boils down to one thing that happened again and again and again and again spongebob doing chores around the Krusty Krab at first he does them just because he's a good employee and then he does them because he's afraid that the yeti crab will eat him if he doesn't but that is seriously what the bulk of this episode is and I didn't find these chores to be funny but all of them were done in at least mildly amusing ways even if it was a bit repetitive and a lot of these tasks I've seen spongebob do in other episodes and if don't look now was kind of similar to graveyard shift then the plot of this episode is actually very similar to graveyard shift where it features a character at the Krusty Krab telling another character a story in order to scare them and then that thing that they were telling the story about just so happens to show up which causes a big misunderstanding ironically though this episode has the opposite misunderstanding happen where it's a real monster that Squidward doesn't believe is real again it's not too similar but it doesn't really get any points for originality there as far as the Yeti crab itself it's pretty cool I like the design I like his mannerisms I wouldn't say anything about it is really great or really interesting but there's nothing wrong with it that's right it's another episode it's not funny and the story isn't great but at the same time it doesn't really have any problems outside of that and I was at least mildly amused by what happened it just could have been a little bit more interesting and a little bit less repetitive my favorite part has to be the fact that Squidward actually did decide to try to stand up for spongebob saying that even though he's an idiot he still hasn't deserved to be treated poorly which is kind of ironic considering Squidward dressed up as a horror movie character to scare spongebob only a few episodes ago all-in-all middle-of-the-road stuff episode 189 spongebob you're fired I didn't feel like writing a description because it's pretty much in the title ooh boy this is a bad episode buckle up guys because this is going to be a long review all right let's just go chronologically here first off let's talk about the reason spongebob is fire it's because mr. Krabs can save a nickel yeah it's a stupid comedy hurt eater mr. Krabs is cheap joke what's annoying about this is that this is the event that sets in motion this whole episode this also sets up spongebob being pretty bummed out for the rest of the first half of the episode it's a big deal and the show treats it like a stupid joke I don't mind mr. Krabs joking about him being fired with a pink slip and all that stuff but I am bothered by the reasoning because that is a plot point it makes me not want to take this story seriously because of just how stupid it is the fire spongebob over such a small amount of money when it's obvious that in the long run he should be making a lot more money by employing spongebob than by not employing him like imagine if in the spongebob movie instead of mr. Krabs not allowing spongebob to run the Krusty Krab to because he was too immature but instead because it would save me a ha'penny ah that would be stupid the reason why they didn't do that was because that was an important point that set up the whole movie mr. Krabs decision there had a lot of weight to it not only does it set up the flop but it sets up the core theme of the movie of Spongebob feeling like he's looked down upon for being childlike but here it's just a dumb joke even in can you spare a dime when Squidward was fired over a dime at least in that instance it was not just because of the dime but because mr. Krabs thought he was stealing and because they had a big argument about it it was more than just literally a dime and that episode was only 11 minutes long not nearly as melodramatic as this and that one was oh I don't know funny honestly I think a spongebob was going to be fired model sponge did it a lot better than this in how it was a wacky misunderstanding sure that episode is far from perfect but it's better than this one and I'd much rather have it be a misunderstanding than him being fired for an incredibly stupid all right so after that we get depressed bob bahmer pants unlike are you happy now at least SpongeBob's depression here isn't trying to make light of the actual mental illness and is instead more depression in the way of something really bad happened to him and he feels sad about it but just because it's not offensive doesn't mean it's not awful while it makes sense for Sponge Bob to be miserable about what happened to him none of it is funny in the slightest and it goes on for several minutes he doesn't snap out of it until halfway through the episode again comparing it back to model sponge at least in that episode they made Sponge Bob get over it relatively quickly because it's just a bummer to watch spongebob be this miserable for this long comparing it back to the spongebob movie at least there they made Sponge Bob be bummed out in a weird funny and unusual way having him get kind of drunk and instead of just being miserable being really belligerent and grumpy here he's just so low-energy and just so depressed not only is it not fun to see spongebob be like this for this long but it also makes the episodes pacing become really slow because everything spongebob does he does it in a slow drawn-out way realistically if this was your dream job and you lost it you would probably be in the same boat but remember this is here to entertain us and spongebob is not a drama you have to be very careful in making your protagonist be this unfunny bummed out and make sure it doesn't go on for too long or isn't obnoxious like it is here so spongebob being miserable really ruins any potential that the whole fun employment bit could have actually had and Wow great sandy you're doing things that are incredibly unethical that's just wonderful in the second half of the episode spongebob decides that he needs to get a new job so of course it goes to all the food places but uh-oh all spongebob can make is Krabby Patties because that's never been done before and the worst part about this is that it's not a montage it's not a bunch of quick cuts it's a long drawn-out thing a spongebob going to restaurant after restaurant after restaurant where the same thing happened every time it's as monotonous as Atlantis Square panas having a character do something four times with the same result every time is not an interesting story you have to vary it up a bit or put it in a montage or something so after all that Sponge Bob goes home and goes to see it Gary but he doesn't have any snail phone so he makes his own which turns out to be like a krabby patty because that's all they can make oh wait no that would make sense instead he makes really good tasting snail food which leads to nothing at all this whole scene of Sponge Bob making snail food has nothing to do with anything that happens in the episode you think maybe it's gonna set up that oh wow Sponge Bob can actually make snail food so maybe he'll go to work at a snail food place but no no that's not what happens so the show just contradicts itself and saying that he can make something other than Krabby Patties for exactly no reason and then after this Sponge Bob gets kidnapped by the hot dog guy the one who thought that Sponge Bob turning in hot dogs into patties was an abomination yeah apparently he served them to his customers and they loved it this directly contradicts what actually happens earlier in the episode where he throws the patties on the ground and kicks spongebob out but hey who needs consistency who needs logical sense it's just a wacky spongebob cartoon no it's not for the sake of a joke spongebob doesn't point this out it's just an inconsistency because they didn't care instead of just hiring spongebob this guy decided to kidnap him because there's no reasoning there's none there's none whatsoever I don't know he didn't want to pay spongebob maybe it was all a ruse I have no idea because this twist is stupid and then the pizza guy rescues him but oh the pizza guy wants to kidnap them too and so does the Chinese food guy and the taco guy which leads to all these fast-food mascot guys fighting it out over spongebob which incidentally is my favorite part of the episode but only out of context in context it's incredibly out of left field and so far away from what was supposed to be the initial premise of this episode the scene itself is alright but its placement in the episode is just baffling then spongebob is rescued by a krabby patty mascot who turns out to be Squidward and surprise of all surprises the Krusty Krab was horribly run without spongebob because that has never happened on the show and wasn't the most obvious way to bring him back to krusty-krab look I get it it's obvious to everyone that is going to end up back at the krusty krab at the end of the episode but that's no reason to just completely phone in the excuse to get him back come on do something different give us something better than this it's a statistician and you probably saw that coming right but didn't I make the ride to get there enjoyable and interesting even though where I was going to end up was pretty obvious hmm if only this episode did that but no this is just a dismal the episode has no focus with random scenes that have nothing to do with anything a completely awful reason for the story to even happen in the first place is stupidly melodramatic and slow and almost everything that happens it feels so been-there-done-that even the name of the episode is very similar to mrs. puff your fire was there any good jokes in here I have no idea because I was too distracted by how awful this story is and the ending to the episode was the most bland and predictable thing to ever happen in spongebob and by the way had exactly nothing to do with the events of the episode you could show the beginning of the episode to a time card that says one day later and then show the ending of the episode and you would lose exactly zero information great story right where everything the protagonist does has exactly nothing to do with the main conflict I'd be willing to bet that this episode came about because Nickelodeon wanted something that was going to guarantee them high ratings the fact that it has a super attention-grabbing title like spongebob you're fired combined with how awful the episode is really makes me feel like this was an executives idea and that the people working on this episode did not want to be working on this episode and it really stands out given the fact that there is nothing else this season that is anywhere near as bad as this episode I feel like I need to take a break from the show after watching this three times it really is that bad and one of the worst of the series and that is every episode of Spongebob Season 9 a reviewed I'm not even gonna bother wasting the time to build this up this half season is May it's met in the same way that season four is man in that there's a lot of meta sewed most of the good episodes are actually that good and most of the bad episodes aren't actually that bad I'm only going to compare it chart wise to the other mess seasons because that's what's really interesting and you're going to want to ignore the numbers on this and just look at the charts because those are of course full seasons and this is only a little under half of one and percentage-wise this has more math than any of the others this isn't very surprising though the longer a show goes on the more difficult it is to not repeat yourself and to come up with some fresh ideas there are a lot of episodes this season almost all of them in fact that remind me of another episode or a few other episodes of the show has done before this isn't always an awful thing but it's a surefire sign that your show has gone on too long and it's not purely the fact that they're similar to other episodes that's problematic it's the fact that they don't bring new things to the table as well is 9 a better than season 8 no honestly I think they're about the same there is absolutely overall less frustrating elements in 9 a and 8 but the problem is that the humor still just isn't really there and most of the stories are just too weak to stand on their own without the comedy and while I give the show credit for at least staying consistent and not having 9ay be worse than a personally I don't think season 9 is the big second coming of good spongebob well the first 20 episodes anyway we still do have all of 9b to cover but before that I want to talk briefly about the new HD title sequence so with the show switching to HD it pretty much had to have a new theme song it just kind of looks bad to have the theme being standard definition in the show be in high-definition it also leads certain people at Amazon to think that the show is broadcast in 4:3 instead of widescreen and completely screw up the aspect ratio thus smooshing some episodes but I digress as I said when talking about the switch to HD in general spongebob is a show that really tries hard not to change much over the seasons so having a switch the theme song is a pretty big deal instead of having an entirely new theme they basically just recreated the old one but in HD and I think that's a pretty smart decision seeing as any change that they made would have probably been met with a lot of criticism and resistance after all I might find the song itself to be a bit annoying but the whole intro sequence is very iconic so yeah it pretty much is the same exact sequence with a few minor tweaks for instance they use the newer spongebob logo I think that they did a fantastic job and there's only one thing to complain about and I'm definitely not the first one to say this but the iconic Island that has always been right over Bikini Bottom is for some reason now in CG in general I don't have a problem with the show using CG they have plenty of times in the past I have a problem with the fact that the CG looks very obvious here and not only that but episodes of the show also used this new CG Island if I had to guess I would say they changed it because maybe they wanted to use more interesting angles than just the one in scenes above the surface like in layman fortune but that's only one guess and I'm not sure that entirely explains it for whatever the reason though it definitely looks bad but everything else in the theme song is pretty well adapted and now let's dive into Sponge Bob 9b episode 190 a lost in Bikini Bottom spongebob finds himself stranded in a strange part of town so the first thing I'm going to say is that this is actually a pretty educational episode teaching kids the definition of a line as well as Sandy's survival tip being a legitimately good tip and that you should look for landmarks if you get lost this is a point little episode nothing flashy or special no big laughs or particularly memorable moments but it's enjoyable nonetheless I'll be it in a modest way the focus is almost entirely placed on spongebob just being himself in a new location trying to overcome a simple yet relatable dilemma and I really like how the gift Squidward a nice little quiet moment - it really says something when my favorite part of the episode is indeed the atmosphere because the episode has more quiet moments than most others and I think that's a good thing the show doesn't always have to be loud and flashy to be funny and Squidward scenes serve as a nice juxtaposition with spongebob frantically running around yelling and being lost and Squidward just having a chill day it does a good job breaking up the episode but additionally I like this weird location of this run-down part of Bikini Bottom and the part where spongebob can't recognize his broken hydrant because there's broken hydrants everywhere feels like a very classic spongebob joke almost rock bottom esque my main complaint is that the ending goes on too long and really doesn't have much to do with the rest of the episode like it wasn't a out spongebob being clean or dirty or anything like that so why they spend all this time focusing on mr. Krabs sending him back home because he's dirty and then Squidward trying to get himself dirty and then getting hosed off by mr. Krabs it really just seems out of place for the type of episode they were trying to tell and a more fitting ending would have been Sponge Bob being sent home and then along the way deciding to take a shortcut and we end on him being lost yet again or heck maybe a similar thing happening - Squidward on his way home from work at the ending punchline of the free coupons not actually being free was a bit obvious and the Squidward part really doesn't tie back to much of anything however outside of that I do like this episode and would consider it good it won't be making any top 5 lists anytime soon but it's certainly a charming little episode with a few nice jokes thrown in like SpongeBob's face coming out of the toilet and the gag with old man Jenkins being stuck to SpongeBob's wire not to mention the weird jerky guys on the couch drinking soda episode 190 B tutor sauce mr. Krabs attempts to teach spongebob had a drive the craziest thing about this episode is that not only does Krab give pearl money without even a single hesitation but also the fact that spongebob is costing Krabs thousands of dollars and although he's certainly not happy about it he is definitely not overreacting or even really that angry it's always nice and refreshing to see episodes that are about Krabs that have very little to do with money and here the money is mostly just used as a punchline for how much spongebob is costing Krabs instead of playing into the plot in a big way and though yes Krabs is teaching Sponge Bob because he wants spongebob to go back to cooking normal patties and making him money there is also a sense that a he actually cares about spongebob and wants him to do well and be it's also fueled by Krabs as ego in wanting to not fail at this task all this to say that I like Krabs his characterization in the episode I also like the weird realistic touches like when the Krusty Krab gets destroyed not only is it costing mr. Krabs money we actually see a repairman having to fix it and of course then there's the end of the episode where after mr. Krabs uses Gary to show SpongeBob that anyone can drive it gets in trouble with the law for it which is just a nice little surprise twist because in a cartoon like spongebob really anything can happen such as a snail driving a boat and it doesn't look too out of the ordinary but of course when you apply a real-world con and yeah what crabs did was horribly negligent the episodes also pretty funny the bulk of it is just these rapid-fire gags of Spongebob driving and crashing into the Krusty Krab in various ways they mix up the gag just enough so it doesn't get repetitive and boring and instead they use the various twists on it to heighten the joke like the one time when spongebob doesn't crash into the Krusty Krab he causes all these other cars to crash into it there's also other decent gags like the police officer who is married to his job and pearl crashing through the Krusty Krab in a joke that has some great timing it has a good set up and understandable reasons for why the characters are doing what they're doing then it contains a bunch of gags and then it elevates to an interesting climax at the roundabout followed by a pretty funny ending all in all I'd say it's pretty good the jokes in this episode aren't amazingly hilarious but they're all at least chuckle worthy and I like the fact that they tie in that Krabs has a teenage daughter who would be about driving aged that of course he helped out because that's typically what parents do for their kids once they get their learner's permit episode 191 a squid fuzz on a their squid plus one Squidward struggles to find someone to take with him to a fancy event so right off the bat I was getting new fish in town vibes where it was another episode about Squidward finding a new person that he could relate to because he really has no friends but this episode doesn't really have that much in common with the other one they're just similar thematically which is perfectly fine but the episode is also very mundane it's a Squidward episode and he doesn't interact with spongebob that much and he's not in any sort of crazy situation so it can come off as a bit dry I mean look I love Squidward but he is definitely at his best when he's reacting to something crazy going on or playing off spongebob that said the more I watched this episode the more I liked this episode there are some funny things in here like Squidward's giant head when he's yelling at spongebob Norton's big long anti clarinet speech which is funny because of how articulate he is about the subject as well as his other speech after Squidward leaves and the fact that the jetski keeps appearing in the episode as Squidward and Larry hang out and then again at the very end randomly taking pictures on the red carpet oh and there's what the announcer fish has to say at the end about Squidward's little performance piece and let's not forget shouting to the heavens that he's injured which if you didn't pick up on it is ironic and if you can believe it this episode actually has a Rolodex joke that I enjoy having Squidward find the number that turns out to be a bunch of bugs it's a really creative and funny gag huh now that I listed them all out I do have to say this episode is actually pretty funny albeit in a more subtle way than most I think story was though the episode suffers a little bit in the fact that Norton the male fish disappears a little over halfway in and right when things were getting interesting with him too it said because he doesn't even reappear at the end of the episode and then the stuff that Larry just feels a little brief for the most part their friendship is just that montage I would say that the episode would have been much better off if it had either entirely focused on Squidward and Norton's friendship or if it had been about Squidward going to many different characters in bikini bottom trying to be friends with each one of them before something goes wrong so basically either focus on the one relationship or get out a whole bunch of them in quick succession as the way it's split up now feels like both Larry and Norton could have used a little bit more time but at the same time there are still clever things about the story like Squidward being a big hypocrite with Larry and that that's exactly what Norton did to him and I thought the ending was really clever as well instead of going with something cheesy and predictable like Squidward just brings spongebob he brings spongebob doing a performance art piece where he rolls around a mirror so Squidward can pretend that he's going with himself which was foreshadowed throughout the entire episode as Squidward keeps talking himself in the reflection well I was initially kind of bored with this episode the more I watched it the more I saw little things that I liked and you know what I do think it is a good episode thanks in part to some good jokes and a very solid ending as well as the interesting character that is Normand the episode could have been a little more interesting but what we get here is something that is enjoyable enough to be called good 191 be the executive treatment patrick finds himself caught up in the world of big business so the fact that my favorite part of the episode is just a few seconds in an elevator is a good clue to the fact that i don't think this is a good episode as for why i like that part i don't know something about Patrick's relaxed face and the elevator music it's just like a sweet tiny little moment as far as the episode as a whole though well I definitely appreciate what they were going for with all the business humor like the executives only talking in weird business speak that actually means nothing and extensive use of charts but though I can definitely see them making jokes I have to say that it all falls very flat for me I don't find anything in this episode funny but I could very easily see someone with slightly different tastes from myself really liking these jokes I don't think that they're particularly unfunny I just don't think that they land quite as well as they should like after you've heard the opening scene with all the business people using their business e terms you're kind of already sick of that one joke that they keep using throughout the whole episode they don't really vary it up enough in my opinion but I think the biggest misstep of all is this business manager boss played by Frank Ferrante who is a guy who is apparently known for imitating Groucho Marx but that's the issue in this episode this business manager although he looks intimidating is acting like an old-time in comedian cha cha cha and of all of the different ways they could have made this character act this one just seems like totally out of place and not in a funny juxtaposition kind of way like it would have been great if this boss character was legitimately big and threatening and comedic ly serious or if they wanted to go the comedian angle they could have made him up to be more like a completely incompetent boss that everyone puts up with for some reason like Michael Scott from the office but that's not how they do it these this weird mix of kind of looking and somewhat acting a little bit threatening but also being just this comedian that just doesn't feel right in this role it just feels like so much wasted potential and there's just something very off about it aside from him though the episode as a whole is very montage II there's a montage of the business people talking at the beginning of the episode there's this montage of Patrick getting swept away to the business building there's this montage of him doing business E things as far as the story goes it's very bare-bones but after all the negatives I've had to say about this episode I can also say that it's relatively Pleasant it's not funny and the story isn't great but Patrick here is likeable and there is something really endearing about Patrick being swept up in this situation that he is not equipped to handle and all the poor guy wants is just to get a sandwich as weird as it is for all the faults this episode has Patrick is definitely not one of them and I think his likability in this episode really elevates it up see what I did there so I am going to say that this episode is a man despite a bunch of missteps it's not something I can call bad it makes for an alright watch at least the first time you see it even if it does leave me longing for something that maybe push this concept a little bit further and made it a little bit better maybe if the timing of the jokes was just a little bit different or if the boss character was tweaked a bit this episode could have been good but as it stands I think it's just okay and if you really liked this episode I can definitely see where you're coming from especially if you think it's funny episode 192 a company picnic mr. Krabs and plankton both throw company picnics hey did you guys know that toilet paper has thousands of uses well we already know it could be used to decorate with anyway this episode is now what's the word oh yeah awful I actually had trouble coming up with the description for this episode because the conflict doesn't actually kick in until very very late we have this whole sequence of spongebob with his Patty family then convincing Krabs to take them on a company picnic then a scene of them at the company picnic and then plankton shows up with his own awesome company picnic but we don't really know what his plan is yet and then eventually he revealed that his plan is wait for it to throw a really good company picnic in order to get Krabs to agree to become a Chum Bucket employee so that the krabby patty formula will belong to plankton and if that sounds like a pretty awful plan what's worse is the fact that it inexplicably almost works but more on that in a minute so yeah the actual conflict doesn't kick in until the very end of the episode at first you kind of think it's going to be like a Dueling picnic type thing but that's not really what the episode is about either because mr. Krabs jumps ship to Plankton's picnic pretty fast and until plankton whips out the contracts there really is no downside to joining Plankton's picnic and since Krabs himself ran over the picnic SpongeBob's feeble attempt to compete with it seems just kind of pointless like it's not even a contest that Plankton's picnic is a lot better and especially once Krabs thinks so too then what's the point like what's at stake here nothing so spongebob might as well go over and joy plankton picnic which he does so for most of the episode the stakes are pretty much non-existent there's not a conflict it's just the characters going on a really kind of lame company picnic so back to the stupidity of Krabs willingly wanting to sign this thing that makes him a Chum Bucket employee the justification for this is that the picnic is just so good that he's just charmed into doing this which is really incredibly weak like maybe if plankton drugged to the candy he gave Krabs which I know it's a kids show but I don't know maybe somehow they could get away with that maybe it was like a knock out candy or something and mr. Krabs was getting sleepy so he's kind of hazy and that's why he signs it or just some other justification other than law working for plankton seems like fun I'm going to go do it I mean I know crabs brains are the size of a pencil tip and mr. Krabs doesn't seem like the brightest bulb at all times when it comes to fighting against plankton there is no way he would do something this dumb it's just out of character it's like the writers forgot to actually have a conflict in the episode or couldn't think of an actual good plan involving plankton and a company picnic so they threw this in at the last second and speaking of that of character am I the only one that found it weird that Squidward was stuffing his face with cotton candy and key nuts sure squids had his freak out moments in the past but this just seemed like out of the blue he typically wouldn't stuff his face that one's not a huge deal but it did stick out to me a bit now let's get on to the other stupid thing about this episode the ending quote unquote twist where it turns out that all Plankton's wonderful things were actually Holograms projected onto gross things which just makes absolutely no sense why are the Holograms able to project in a 3d space why is it that the characters can't actually taste the disgusting things they're put in their mouth I understand that the brain can play tricks on you when you genuinely believe you're eating something delicious but at least spongebob should have smelled something how was the bus able to drive if it was just a broken-down boat how was the robot able to explode if he was just a trash can did plankton program that in for authenticity and at no point was this like foreshadowed or hinted at in any way it's once again like the writers threw it in because they knew they had to have some sort of hook or twist at the end of the episode and this was really the best they got oh and the way spongebob foils plankton plot is that he accidentally knocks a pen into the projector shutting everything off basically the point I'm getting at is that everything about this ending is just stupid and not justified there are many silly things in spongebob and silly things are fine but you have to at least justify it give us a good reason why Krabs would sign over to plankton not just he enjoyed a picnic foreshadow the fact that these are Holograms or even just give us a better explanation than that but I guess with a plan this stoop the only way I could have been a foil was with a stupid random event as well and as far as the rest of the episode it's boring because there's no conflict there's no stakes and of course it goes without saying I don't think there's that many funny jokes in the episode okay sure I kind of like the slow-motion and I kind of like Krebs struggling to get his shell back on and there's something kind of endearing about Sponge Bob role-playing as a krabby patty family in the beginning but everything else in the episode just isn't funny isn't interesting isn't much of a story at all and the only actual plot we get is just stupid it's a strong wall did I even really need to say it episode 192 B pull up a barrel mr. Krabs tell the tale about his younger days in the Navy right off the bat I have to say that this episode would have been so much better if it had been a 22 minutes special and it's just kind of weird that it's not almost any other time that we get an episode that takes place in a different time period it's a 22 minutes special Oh Glen door foe pest to the west dunces and Dragons all specials which is good because they should be specials especially if they're going to have wraparound segments like this one does because in effect it's like you only get eight minutes of crabs as time in the Navy because we have this whole long setup a few times that it cuts back to Sponge Bob Squidward and Krabs in present time and the ending and of course this especially sucks because it's in a season which we get spongebob you're fired which is a special that very easily could have just been 11 minutes and unfortunately because this isn't a special I do think the story somewhat suffers for the most part it does play out rather simply when it could have been that much more epic and big and complicated if there's any spongebob story that deserves it it's one telling of Krabs is passed in the Navy but alright enough of my complaining because despite this sort of thing working better in a longer run time I do actually think this is a good episode even as is just the base fact that we get an episode about crabs in the Navy is something to celebrate because we've heard about this a number of times over the show but this is the first time we get to see any of it at length and it's certainly pretty cool to see a different side of crabs one of the creative decisions that I really like about the episode is the choice to make Patrick and Sandy play characters in Krabs's flashback sandy plays a surprisingly good pirate captain and is especially shocking because you expect plankton to be playing the opposition of Krabs and Patrick is cast as the irrational stupid jerky Navy captain do I even really have to say how fitting that is well sure it would have been perfectly fine to have had new characters in these roles it is a cool little way to tie in other spongebob characters and have them playing alternate versions of themselves another thing I like about the episode is Krabs narration because although what actually happens in the episode is basically straightforward the way Krabs is narrating along with the soundtrack definitely makes it feel bigger and more epic than it actually is and really there is nothing wrong with the story it just comes off as a little bit abridged when if they had had more time they could have done more things like have a much more interesting pirate battle and actually explain what happens to scar fish at the end does he die the last we see of him is being washed away out into the ocean on the Sun block as far as gags go it is a little bit light but I definitely love spongebob slapping scar fish's scar off of him and scar fish yelling my personality along with some other minor jokes like Krabs saluting in multiple different unusual ways and the weird fascination with moldy bread crusts oh and the ending is interesting as well seeing as we know that Krabs was both in the Navy and a pirate and the whole time I was watching I was kind of wondering if they were actually going to address this and even if they don't directly they do kinda wink-wink nudge-nudge at the end like maybe this is how Krabs ended up switching from the Navy to being a pirate 193 a sanctuary spongebob becomes a crazy cat lady also known as the second time that spongebob would have appeared on hoarders yeah this episode pretty much follows the exact same pattern of sentimental sponge have a things slowly grow more and more out of control showing how it affects his life in various ways and it effects Squidward's life before officials come in and spongebob has to do something to get rid of his surplus and really a lot of the same problems that I had with that episode I have with this episode mostly in just that not much actually happens in the story like we spend time at the Krusty Krab showing what happens when spongebob is away and then Squidward has to leave because of his allergy but after school bird leaves that's the last scene with the krusty krab or mr. Krabs so that whole plot thread of the Krusty Krab being in trouble ultimately doesn't amount to anything sure it shows how SpongeBob's hoarding of these snails is affecting Krabs's business but it just feels like it's there to fill time there's also the part where patrick disguises himself as a snail so he can get into SpongeBob's house which does have a payoff at the end in the form of a joke but otherwise doesn't really serve any purpose and I'd be very forgiving if this episode were funny but it's not I kind of like Squidward puffing up especially at the end and the guy who likes Krabby Patties at Squidward's sneezed on was kind of funny but in general the episode is not it's also super forgettable and bland and it really does just make me think of sentimental sponge which wasn't great to begin with yeah I'm gonna say it's a bit I mean hey at least sentimental sponge had a clever ending this one just has bob barnacle show up and say hey look there's a convenient easy way to get rid of all of these pets because it turns out that they escaped from my pet rescue place the whole thing is just kind of a weak story it's certainly not an awful scum Bob but I really don't see much redeeming here and it is too similar to sentimental sponge in my opinion and yeah if it wasn't obvious that's Bob Barker as bob barnacle episode 193 be what's eating Patrick mr. Krabs enters Patrick and a krabby patty eating contest so this episode is your typical fluffy underdog enters and then triumphantly wins a competition there is something about this story archetype that always does resonate with people it is always satisfying to see the underdog win out against the champ is this episode a good parody of the cliches found in this type of story well it's an all right one we do have the adorable little kid who desperately wants his hero to win and a lot of the gags surrounding him are pretty funny like Patrick's spitting in his face the fact that he can't pronounce words correctly because he's so adorable and how Patrick accidentally breaks his other leg at the end of the episode additionally they made the antagonist fish actually not be a jerk typically and especially in like the 80s and 90s sports movie version of this cliche the champion is a complete jerk to the protagonist and the reason this is usually done is so that there's mistakes and so that you really really really want to root for the underdog not just to win but to beat those mean old good players but in this episode the guy doesn't even get much screen time and when he does he just kind of has polite conversation with Patrick sure maybe he is a jerk on his own time to be fair I'm not quite sure what fish comes to a town that he doesn't live in and enters in their contest on their Founders Day but hey maybe eating contests or all this guy has anyway point is it was kind of refreshing to see him not be a jerk but aside from all of that I wouldn't say the episode really makes fun of this type of story that much you know spongebob could do a much better job at satirizing this material and in fact has done so in the past but it does still do an okay job at that and there are a few other laughs in the episode not related like the file photo of Patrick using a chair incorrectly or the rival fish flushing down the Krabby Patties like he's a toilet not amazingly laugh-out-loud worthy jokes but still kind of funny and the climax of the episodes the actual eating contest is pretty great season 9b so far at least has been really good at building up atmosphere through the amazing use of soundtrack and much I can pull up a barrel they use a narrator to get you more hyped up about what's going on not to mention the excitement of the crowd and all of the Patrick paraphernalia that's being thrown around you definitely can't help but get swept up in the excitement and really want Patrick to win and when it comes to this type of episode that is so very important if you don't want the guy to win then you don't care about what's happening my main complaint though is that this episode makes a jerk out of Krabs for no real reason the antagonist of the episode is this rival eating competition guy even though he's not jerky he is still the antagonist and the force that Patrick is working against and besides just wanting to beat his competition there are many other motivations in this episode like Patrick's want to taste that last krabby patty and the fact that it is Founders Day and it would be a huge list down to see the underdog from Bikini Bottom lose so I don't understand why they need to make Krabs into such a crusty jerk that forces Patrick to go on with the eating contest and in a really mean way too he never receives any comeuppance and if anything his business is thriving because of the stuff he did mr. Krabs could have had a really sweet mentor relationship with Patrick but instead Krabs just has to act like a jerk here I'm totally fine with him acting like a jerk in episodes where he is the antagonist or he does get come up and for his actions but here it's just not necessary you can still have him be motivated by money in the krusty krab but you could have them be a little bit nicer to the guy who's making this competition possible it doesn't serve a point and it does kind of tarnish what is ultimately a very sweet episode in every other aspect but all that aside I think it is a good episode it certainly could have been a lot better in a few different ways but as it stands it's a little bit funny and very satisfying to watch 190 for a Patrick the game Patrick in Vince's own board game I guess this would be the kids version of chardee macdennis anyway this episode is may for a very simple reason there's no stakes in this episode what happens if Patrick's game sucks nothing what happens at attrex game is great nothing it's not like Patrick and Squidward made any sort of bet Patrick just said I can do this and Squidward's like yeah okay and it's not like they're forcing Squidward to play the game sure they kind of coerce him into staying a few times but he does keep coming back it's not like there's even anything up for grabs for whoever wins the game it's just watching these characters play a kind of silly game with no rules yeah this episode isn't very funny sure some Squidward's one-liners are alright but that's about it at the same time though it is a pleasant episode there's nothing frustrating about it the characters are all fine and it's not so boring that it deserves a scum bob but it's just not very interesting if you're the type of person who just likes hanging out in the world of Spongebob and doesn't mind that a story doesn't actually have that much going on then yeah I could definitely see you giving this a good but as for me I expect a little more in the story or comedy departments and I have this crazy feeling that if this episode were made in season two or three Squidward would end up really loving the game and get too far into it demanding everyone else plays it his way I lost no ball effect or idiot box and I think that would lead to a lot more conflict and comedy oh and speaking of what if I like that they have this game called certified public accountant at the beginning but they don't actually really make too many jokes about it they just kind of say well this is a thing that exists they definitely could have gotten a lot funnier with that setup there is one thing though that I really do like about this episode the montage of Patrick creating the game it's not anything funny but once again it has good atmosphere thanks in part to the music as well as some of the lighting and just the way the sequence is put together it's fun and triumphant but yeah overall a pretty forgettable episode episode 194 B the sewers of Bikini Bottom spongebob and Squidward must enter the sewers to retrieve the formula man bad things always happen when Squidward is put in charge at the Krusty Krab something kind of unique about this episode is that it has a secondary plot it stars a character that's only in this episode Charlton hawkfish played by Jeff Bennett who is not a name that I recognize but he's been in a lot of animated projects over the years like voicing Johnny Bravo just to name one and I actually really like this character and the subplot how he's overly dramatic about everything is not only funny because it's in a spongebob cartoon but also because he's talking about sewer pipes something incredibly mundane but at the same time even though he's being overly dramatic he is still right about everything and incredibly competent in the end it takes a really well-written and likable character to pull off just throwing this one off character at the protagonist of his own Side Story in an episode but I think they really did pull it off and I also really liked the main story with SpongeBob and Squidward them randomly flushing stuff down the toilet in a shared manic episode is classic spongebob and the gags really just keep coming from not wanting to flush down old man Jenkins to telling everyone in the Krusty Krab that the fry cook is in the toilet to all the rapid-fire gags about trying to get the safe back there's just a lot of gags in this episode and I really do appreciate that because I think that is something that has been missing from the post first movie episodes in a big way the episode also shows off a new location the sewers and it really does take advantage of the fact that they're in HD now with some really great looking backgrounds another rare thing about this episode is the fact that it is about getting back the krabby patty formula but it actually has nothing at all to do with plankton I really kind of expected them to shoehorn him in at some point but no they never do and that's good because he doesn't need to be in every episode with the formula formula can just be a MacGuffin that needs to be retrieved and the formula bottle has never even seen in the episode and it really is refreshing to see them using the Krabby Patty secret formula in a different way it's a good episode in fact it's a really good episode with a new location a one-off character that really leaves an impression lots of comedy and a refreshing story kind of funny that this is an episode where spongebob is literally covered in scum episode 195 a spongebob long pants spongebob gets new pants that completely change his life I think this is actually a pretty clever episode in a very subtle way basically it's spongebob rebooted new job new friends new name and a boating license not to mention the new pants and this isn't me grasping at an interpretation here the very first thing in the episode is spongebob talking about a married man and Barnacle Boy reboot unfortunately though for how clever and subtle that whole part of the episode is this one has some problems the start we already had an episode that was kicked off with spongebob getting a new pair of leg wear ensure the episodes go in very different directions but there was no real reason to have it be this way in fact I think it would have been much better if spongebob got a new pair of dress shoes to better fit with the reboot theme and to just differentiate it from spongebob round pants but the much bigger issue is that this episode is super rushed this is the kind of story that works much better in a 22 minute episode and again I must remind everyone this is in the season that we got spongebob you're fired it really is frustrating considering that this episode is actually really similar to spongebob you're fired in terms of basic premise of SpongeBob's life changing after he leaves his job it's just that that one couldn't figure out exactly what it wanted to do for the story and this one just tried to shove every single thing in there the problem here is that we don't get that much time to spend on SpongeBob's new job it's in one scene spawn draws new friends only get a few lines and heck we never even get to see spongebob drive on his own despite having a license I definitely think this would have been a good episode had it been a 22 minute special but as it is unfortunately it's just man another problem is that the episode would have been much better off if they had better emphasized why pants are a sign of adulthood I mean it does kind of make sense because most business attire is long pants and shorts are seen as much more casual but it's not like it's a universal sign of adulthood like having a mustaches so if they were going to use something that is only kind of sort of related to adulthood they really should have spent time selling us on why these represent adulthood at least in the show I'm fine with it being ridiculous the movie theater doesn't allow people in long pants but only if you sell us on this idea that pants are somehow this universal symbol of adulthood and lastly there's the ending spongebob suddenly can't get out of these pants because the zipper is stuck this is actually kind of clever as well considering the guy at the beginning definitely seemed like a con man and spongebob has a pretty funny line of now I know I'm an adult because I've been ripped off but the issue is that it's over too quickly he's stuck in the pants for a few seconds then Krabs comes out and cuts them off if this were a 22 minutes special and he gets stuck in the pants two-thirds of the way through and is forced to continue living this life he doesn't want then the story would be a lot better but as it stands it's just one really quick conflict that they just threw and at the end that doesn't have any time to play out aside from the cleverness I do like things like mrs. Puff's somehow knowing that spongebob has gotten his license and the Krusty Krab customers all eating like big fat slobs but the little jokes like those in no way make up for this episodes massive pacing problems oh and for some reason Jeff Bennett is also in this episode as a guest star it's kind of unusual to have the same guest star for two episodes that aren't connected at all but I mean hey it's not a bad thing episode 195 be Larry's gym Larry finds that operating his gym comes at the cost of his own fitness Wow I never thought I'd see an episode with Larry the lobster as a protagonist sure there have been other episodes that have Larry play a part in like sponge guard on duty or a life in a day but even in those episodes Larry doesn't play too much of a part and he is definitely not the protagonist it's so refreshing and nice to have a character who isn't spongebob Krabs plankton or Patrick be the protagonist if nothing else but four varieties sake and although spongebob does play a big part it is undoubtedly Larry's story and Larry here is a very likeable protagonist you understand what its problems are and you're rooting for him to find a way to solve them I'm very glad they went with the kinder more sympathetic side of Larry than the jerk bag Larry that features in some episodes when you boil it down the story itself is very predictable and basic Larry opens a gym because he wants to work out more but he can't because he's too busy operating the gym predictably the solution is to just stop operating the gym and just go back to working similarly spongebob mysteriously is able to get ripped while he's also chugging a bunch of water surprise of all surprises it's because he's over and gorged himself on it but it's fine because although the story is just kind of predictable and simple it is an entertaining journey along the way there's a lot of gags in this episode that I like SpongeBob's nose having a muscle the shot of the Bikini Bottom is all being super fat Larry's literal potbelly and the mr. Krabs being cheap jokes I actually really enjoy here mostly for the fact that Krabs actually plays pretty much no part in the actual story itself so it's perfectly acceptable for him to just be comic relief's playing up his one character trait it works so much better here because there's cheapness isn't getting in the way of anything and it's just used for jokes I especially love him just appearing out of the ether as soon as the word free is mentioned and drinking Larry's disgusting tear juice although I have to say the ending gag is so predictable in general it's a pretty funny episode and a satisfying story it's definitely a good episode oh and there's also a guy who screams my legs when his legs get crushed I wasn't entirely sure if I should include this but yeah the two broken legs are there so you know it's a different version of the my leg gag I just can't get over the fact that after so many seasons they actually had a different character be the protagonist for once I mean what next are they going to give pearl an episode all to herself with spongebob only getting one line in at the end Yeah right 196 a the fishbowl sandy secretly runs pranks on SpongeBob and Patrick I mean social experiments what I appreciate about this episode is that it does genuinely teach some behavioral psychology give someone a bigger bowl and their food will appear smaller make someone think that someone else is getting more than them and they will get jealous and want a sense of justice people do act differently when they think they're being recorded it even gives a clear definition of what behavior psychology is and that is the study of people and their habits even Sandy's ice cream truck is a reference to a famous psychologist Ivan Pavlov and is well known Pavlov's dog study so I think the basic idea here is really good and that they were onto something but this episode is boring there's actually a sequence where we watch SpongeBob and Patrick counts and and even though sandy is somehow surprised at spongebob and Patrick's behavior all of it is very predictable oh gee Patrick acts like a jerk when he gets put in a place of power I've never seen that before to be fair though at least Patrick's jerkiness here is a part of the story and he does get called out and apologized for it even though in the end he doesn't actually think he did anything wrong in that it's Sciences fault despite the interesting premise it's just so forgettable and each individual bit just kind of goes on and on also I did not like the whole Squidward part of this episode like it could have been clever if sandy was also observing him and everything she was doing was also to get a reaction out of him but outside of that ending gag that's not the case and it just kind of seems like Sandy's being a jerk - Squidward for no reason whatsoever and I don't know desperately running out with the chase the ice-cream truck feels kind of beneath Squidward it's not an abysmal episode but I think it is boring enough to be considered a screwball machine I really wanted to like this episode but the execution just leaves a lot to be desired I did like the joke about SpongeBob and Patrick being camera shy though episode 196 be married to money plankton disguises himself as money and marries mr. Krabs in another attempt to learn the formula oh boy this episode I do like pearl here because she does act like an actual teenage daughter would act in regards to her father having a new love interest it's a nice little touch of realism what some of the jokes around her make up being a rash and her boots actually being barnacles are kind of funny that said the rest of the episode isn't funny but it actually kind of goes beyond not being funny in the fact that it's a bummer the ending of this episode is just sad there isn't the slightest bit of positivity or optimism thrown in there it is just well Krabs you fell in love with and married plankton accidentally and you're probably going to be alone forever and you had to tip your waiter in fact this is probably the saddest ending in all of spongebob and while I think sad endings in general are perfectly fine it really does not fit this show because it's not even one of those things that's like sad but it's supposed to be funny like Squidward getting left with all those monsters in the thing no aside from the waiter joke it's all played pretty straight at the same time though while it's a bummer that Krabs ends up alone and sad here I also don't really feel bad for him because think about it in this entire episode does he like anything anything at all about Kushina except for the fact that she is literally made of money that's pretty shallow that's the biggest issue with the ending is that it just fades out it doesn't have like one big sad punch at the end it doesn't have any bit of optimism for crabs at the end it doesn't have a lesson that crabs is supposed to learn like about falling in love for reasons other than money it just ends and that's why I consider it a bummer because it's not even like it's played up for drama or a tragic ending it's just a downer for no reason the episode is also obvious because they show us at the beginning that it's plankton in disguise it would be one thing if they left it ambiguous like they strongly hinted it was plankton and Krabs would suspect it being plankton but surprise plot twist it actually isn't plankton but now they just point blank show us that it is blank tin from the very start and no duh his plan is going to fail as a romance episode it's a complete sham where one half is shallow and the other half is literally scheming as a comedy it's just not very funny and as a story it has a very unsatisfying ending don't be fooled by the cutesy little music they play or the cool design of Cascina it's a slow pubs I mean a good portion of the jokes in the episode are either plankton or crab getting electrocuted and the whole spongebob setting up the party on the cheap has already been done in truth or square right down to the fact that they're decorating with toilet paper there are so many better ways that could have done this concept maybe Cash inna is someone that plankton hires to get the formula from Krabs but she ends up falling in love with it or what if Kushina was piloted by Karen at Plankton's insistence but then plankton ruins the whole thing when Karen seems to maybe be getting a little bit too into it or heck how about just an episode where plankton rubs in the fact that he actually has a wife despite it being a computer wife it is still the one thing that plankton has and Krabs does not I could sit here all day doing this but it doesn't change the fact that this episode as it is is not very good but hey it was nice to see mrs. love act Krabs his wedding for whatever that's worth episode 197 a mall girl pearl pearl gets a job that is totally not Coral alright before we talk anything about the story or the fact that it stars pearl or anything like that we have to talk about the crazy amount of detail they put into the background of this episode so first off walking through the mall there are tons of cameos from a blinking you miss it appearance of bubble buddy and the didgeridoo player from something smells too the more obvious ones like mermaidman and barnacleboy and Squidward and SpongeBob there's so many other characters in the background that are one-offs that I can't even list them all here but that's not even where it ends the stores in the background all have these unique and creative names and the floor that Burrell is working on it's all worn down and gross there's even graffiti that says the same things as the graffiti in sailor mouth and on top of all of that there's little signs on some of the stores that have a no mr. Krab symbol typically continuity nods and little background stuff like that don't actually affect the quality of the episode that much but when they go this far overboard with the amazing attention to detail it absolutely makes the episode worth watching but that's not even the only unique thing about the episode it is entirely from pearls perspective even more so than Larry's Jim was about Larry this episode spongebob only gets a singular line at the very end as well as some cameos in the background and the only previously established character that actually plays a part in the story at all is mr. Krabs and he only gets about three or four lines and it works is it unusual that the episode is from pearls perspective sure but not once did I feel like man I really wish spongebob was more in this episode like I said with Larry's Jim it is just refreshing to get to see other characters on the show take the spotlight as long as there aren't tons of episodes like this doing these every so often is a very good day and of course this is also helped by the fact that the second main character in the episode is played by Betty White who is just an amazing actress and does a great job of bringing that warm grandma ish touch to the episode and of course because this is an elderly person on SpongeBob she is also incredibly awesome at kicking butt and the climax of the episode is very satisfying additionally there's pearls friends Pro seems to have different friends in pretty much every episode but the one constant is that they're always awful towards her okay that's teenagers for you that said I should also note that one of them is played by Aubrey Plaza but I don't actually know who that is so I didn't put it on the fun fact there and that ladies and gentlemen is how you ensure you're going to get a few extra hundred comments on your video of people telling me who already Plaza is anyway pros friends are fun as well because they each kind of represent different teen stereotypes as for the story it's nothing complex or crazy but it doesn't need today it's a simple story of pearls first job at the mall and how she learns to appreciate a demographic that's ordinarily seen as not coral and the unlikely friendship that forms between pearl and Beatrice and I like the jokes in the episode like the one about who took the picture of the guy who's taking pictures or the fact that the mall has a basement floor that is apparently just filled with crime not a phenomenally funny episode but still good jokes nonetheless of course it's a good episode an interesting new perspective a solid story a wonderful guest star an amazing attention to detail with the backgrounds and some good jokes it's a very unique and enjoyable episode episode 197 be to thumbs down spongebob breaks his thumbs after over gesturing with them so I do like the song in this episode as well as the climax where SpongeBob and Patrick do a thumb war as it is not only a nice way to show that spongebob has regained control of his thumbs but also makes the episode come full circle as that's what he and Patrick we're doing at the very start but aside from those two things which are good but not really great this episode is pretty easily met the story is basically a day without tears or funny pants all over again spongebob over uses something then spongebob can't use something it's just that simple unfortunately the episode isn't really funny I could forgive this premise being one that they've done before if it was but it's really not episode's trying to also do some sort of parody of like an injured sports star or something but they don't actually really make fun of these tropes too much they just have spongebob be overly dramatic and then there's the big montage and then everyone's happy at the end when spongebob can use his thumbs again it just feels so boring like they're just going through the motions here there's nothing bad about this episode but there really isn't much good either certainly not enough to justify it being called good like the thumb war was alright but not really good or anything and the same goes for the song itself it's a nice song but it can't lay a finger on some of the best spongebob songs out there so overall I give this episode two thumbs to the side I guess yeah unfortunately I went with the one rating that doesn't really work as a pun with the title of the episode but speaking of thumb gestures hey sharks versus pods spongebob finds himself mixed up in a gang war so this episode guest stars Henry Winkler Michael McKean and David Lander as the Sharks I'm not entirely sure whether it's for sharks but only three guest voices but yeah all of these three were on happy days and Laverne and Shirley henry winkler of course being the Fonz and I could have sworn I heard the name Michael McKean somewhere recently and as it turns out he's chuck on better call Saul it was a really good actor anyway this is an episode that is 100% style over substance the story is pretty weak it's just a series of misunderstandings that are cleared up at the end and it turns out that this gang was actually just a dance crew because apparently the show is no longer allowed to have actually legitimately threatening characters every time there's a tough guy or a scary guy or whatever it has to be a mislead just ask the mild one the guy in the alley who just wanted to return Squidward's groceries and of course cousin blackjack I don't know maybe I'll make a square theory on this sometime point being the story itself is not very good but here's the thing when it comes to spongebob oddly sometimes style actually is better than substance because despite the weekend kind of predictable story if the episode is a lot of fun the music and all of the greaser atmosphere the little finger snacks the Sharks accents all the fun dancing at the end seeing spongebob trying to act tough it's all very enjoyable spongebob has never needed to have a good story as long as it had something going for it though the episode isn't particularly funny there are still some good jokes in there like the Sharks overreacting about Donny and the great gag at the end where Patrick runs in saying that they saved the rec center that's never been mentioned before just because it's a cliche but really the focus on the episode is just all of this fun West Side Story grease Happy Days esque atmosphere thanks in part to the wonderful music direction of the episode and hey Here I am again saying the atmosphere is good if there's one thing that season 9b does really well it is getting the atmosphere right and though it might not seem it that is something that is very important the right atmosphere can make an episode and the wrong one can break it what else do I need to say hey yo it's a good episode and of course I have to mention that the hydrodynamic spatula from the very first episode actually makes an appearance in a photo in SpongeBob's house not to mention the fact that reg gets another cameo and the pods dance kind of similarly to how Squidward did in culture shock episode 198 B if it makes clones of himself to impress when do Oh oops copy Bob did Oh pants plankton makes Sponge Bob clones to infiltrate the Krusty Krab this episode sounds like an interesting idea but it's one that is actually kind of boring and repetitive lengthen keep sending sponge clones in and the same thing happens every time Sponge Bob talks to them so they won't tell in the formula then he sends it a bunch of these clones and then every time he tries to ask them for the formula they wither away Sponge Bob in this episode is really ignorant stupid variety of Sponge Bob that thinks all of these copies are just strangers that kind of resemble him except he also is just cool with them all working the grill and working at the Krusty Krab and Krabs is just okay with telling this legion of SpongeBob's the secret formula which is totally not suspicious at all I guess they didn't want the episode to be plankton disguises himself as Sponge Bob in order to get the formula because we've already had that a bunch in terms of the comedy it's definitely very light in fact I think all of the jokes that I actually enjoyed were from Squidward's subplot of thinking that he's dreaming that one fish being the man of squids dreams Squidward's I don't care dance out of the Krusty Krab pulling down crabs his pants and bumping him back into his office yeah these are all all right gags but in terms of the main story you know the bulk of the episode no none of it really is funny in terms of the episode as a whole I don't think it's really bad enough to be asked um Bob but it's still on the lower side of me the episode is still a little bit interesting and Squidward subplot is decently entertained so this one does kind of scrape by its inoffensive just kinda dull also fun fact spongebob was previously cloned at the end of overbooked episode $1.99 a sold Squidward tricks Patrick and SpongeBob into thinking people have moved into their houses this episode really feels classic like it's a classic early spongebob move for Squidward to tell SpongeBob and Patrick that people have moved into their houses and then having to pretend to be those new people in order to keep up the ruse it's an old-school farce and I love it my favorite part of course is Squidward's really gratuitous German ich speak as well as just seeing the guy run back and forth and back and forth it's a good episode it's definitely one of the funnier ones this season and it's just a story that works for SpongeBob it's also cool seeing SpongeBob and Patrick little garbage house and there's other funny little lines like Patrick's saying that he needs to learn how to learn the ending is a bit predictable but it's still okay and the beginning of the episode definitely reminded me of that snow lady when the guy on the street convinced Patrick to get a town just because he was trying to sell them something now that that's really a complaint I don't actually have that much to say but sometimes with a good episode that's just the way it is there's not much to talk about because a lot of it is just good humor that doesn't really need to be dissected it's just got that really good Squidward and SpongeBob and Patrick dynamic that is really sorely missing from the later seasons of the show and I think we have season six to blame for that after screwing up the formula pretty badly but none of that is present here Squidward does a bad thing and continuing to mislead SpongeBob and Patrick and pays the price for it though not in an overly cruel way and SpongeBob and Patrick remain ignorant and good-hearted throughout with the one bad thing they do to Squidward being a complete misunderstanding episode 199 be lame and fortune when spongebob finds fortune cookies that always come true plankton makes his own to trick Krabs I know this is gonna sound a little nitpicky but I was kind of bothered by the fact that these fortune cookies were tiny compared to spongebob and Krabs sure they've kind of played fast and loose with exactly how small the undersea life is compared to the humans but the one constant is that they are always small as shown in episodes like Frankie doodle and both movies so why exactly were these cookies so small it really doesn't matter that much but I do feel that they could have done a better job of setting up these fortune cookies other than just having them literally fall out of the sky my favorite part of the episode was indeed the climax where plankton was trying to get the formula bottle from Sponge Bob but there's just a sea of chum bucket customers that is making it unable for him to do so it's a really fun sequence and for the most part it's well animated despite the fact that there is a really egregious fish that doesn't have a mouth towards the end of it anyway it's a really fun sequence my main complaint though is the fact that it really doesn't have much of anything to do with the rest of the episode if the focus of your episode is fortune cookies then you would think that plankton gets foiled by the same fortune cookies maybe instead of a sea of fish it's a sea of cookies that prevents him from getting to the bottle or maybe he doesn't believe that they all come true and he opens a bunch of them himself because he's a cocky man of science and they all have bad things on them that come true something like that the climax we got is definitely cool and I like it but I think it would have fit better in a different episode so yeah I definitely would have tweaked the episode in the setup and the climax but I do have to say that it is a particularly funny episode Squidward's saying is depression is award-winning which is I guess technically true I'm sure in all of its time on-air SpongeBob's one at least a few Awards although maybe not if they nominate things like dear Vikings and that sinking feeling where was I oh right funny things there's crabs firing his body at Squidward to tackle him out of the cashiers spot Caryn making a crack at how her marriage is hollow and empty plankton crashing from his little helicopter thing it's not like a jaw-dropping hilarious episode but the laughs are relatively consistent in here and the story itself is fine yeah the fortune cookies maybe could have been set up a little bit better but the story of them explicably true all the time and then plankton using that to his advantage is certainly interesting and though the climax may not have fit thematically it was still a lot of fun all in all it's a good episode without the comedy this might have slipped into Med territory but with it it certainly does not I also found it cool that they snuck in grandpappy the pirate and a few other cameos into Krabs's morbid fantasy I would also like to make a note of how plankton basically convinces Krabs that he's going to die if he doesn't hand over the formula which on the surface sounds as bad as what Krabs did the plankton in one course meal but because of the execution here it is played off a lot more lightheartedly I just wanted to mention that because this service is a good contrast and it does show that tone definitely matters and it isn't about what's literally happening so much as it is how the characters and even the show itself treats the situation and I do love how blatant Plankton's fortune is a lot of times in cartoons we'll go with the you will be destroyed or you will face your untimely demise or something like that but no it's just flat-out States you will die hmm I wonder if this episode led to any creepypastas oh and yet again we have this weird variant on the my leg gag with the plural my legs episode 200 good bye krabby patty yikes Nickelodeon really needs to stop with making every special have a click baby title when frozen Krabby Patties become wildly successful spongebob loses his job and his best friend so the story of this episode is basically just a longer more complicated version of selling app but I think this episode has a lot more going on with it and it's different enough that I don't really mind that they are kind of similar stories there's a certain irony to this episode and the fact the characters talk about filler obviously referring to an ingredient they add into the Krabby Patties but it's interesting because that's one of it's not the biggest issue with a lot of the bad spongebob specials that they have too much filler that the writers don't know how to make a 22 minute episode because they're so used to making stories that only take up half that time and the irony here being the fact that this episode has exactly no filler in it at all every scene every part of the episode is important to the overall story even things that aren't strictly necessary for the plot are still important for at least somatic reasons like when plankton comes and tries to steal the formula yeah sure that scene could have been cut but it does serve the purpose of showing that everything in SpongeBob's life has been thrown completely out of whack thanks to this one change I think one really good creative decision that they made was to have the Patrick and SpongeBob friendship be the emotional core of the episode sure you could have told this exact same story without Patrick being in it have it be more about spongebob missing the krabby patty and his old job but not only have we already had a few episodes that already tackled that like Krusty dogs but inserting this emotional core of the friendship between SpongeBob and Patrick being torn apart not only helps them fill up the appropriate amount of time but makes the story a much more personal one while guess we care about Spongebob getting his beloved krabby patty back his friendship with Patrick is even more important than that and much like with plankton including Patrick in the story again shows that SpongeBob's life is being ruined in more ways than one and the SpongeBob and Patrick story while simple is still affected Patrick is 110 percent likable and sympathetic here and they do a great job of setting up the friendship very early on with a montage of the two having fun not only that but they include symbolism like their choice of ice cream to show that Patrick is being forced to live a life that he doesn't want instead of the simple one with SpongeBob one thing I would have changed about Patrick's part in the story was to show more about why Patrick couldn't just quit this lifestyle maybe he wanted to be a star at first and now he's just locked into the contracts maybe Krabs is bullying him into it maybe he's just scared to say no it's not that important because the episode does get across the idea that for whatever reason Patrick can't just quit what he's doing but I think a short scene that kind of spells it out more explicitly would have made the story even better then of course there is jon Hamm's character Don Gruber now of course this is all a big reference to Mad Men where hand played a similar ad exec there and they did a great job with this character Hamm delivers a really spectacular performance you wouldn't know that he's not typically a voice actor but his voice is perfect for he so suave and smooth talking this is what an executive and a boss character should be like yeah looking at you executive treatment I also like that Don isn't really the villain of the piece sure he is the one that's golden crabs into putting filler into the patties I guess he's ignoring Health Regulations and he is definitely using Patrick but he's not really played up to be a villain and in fact faces no consequences at the end well it's always nice to have a villain sometimes it is more interesting to live in a more gray area as far as humor goes well do you like seeing characters having overinflated butts because there's a lot of that I could definitely see people being grossed out by that and other people finding it really funny I think I fall in the middle ground because I don't think it's either the jokes about Patrick being a star or pretty good Don says that he's going to make Patrick into a star and Patrick nonchalantly says that he already is one and then Patrick mentioned something about wanting to be with his friend and then the exact lady says that stars don't need friends there are jokes in here but you kinda have to squint to look for them aside from the obvious but jokes and characters spitting up sand but really the focus is on the storytelling and it is leaps and bounds ahead of Spongebob you're fired because it's a very clear story with very clear stakes and Krabs actually has a much better motivation here it's still not great though of course there could be a lot more jokes and there are some storytelling bits and pieces that just could have been done better and they don't really elaborate a lot of the details like coud Krabs still sell the frozen Krabby Patties but with less or no filler or would he be operating at a loss to do so and does he lose all his money at the end and if so why he got paid a ridiculously enormous amount of money it's not ever mentioned that he loses it but he acts as if you've lost everything at the end these things definitely don't prevent the episode from being a good episode but a little bit more detail and nuance to the story could have escalated it into a really good episode as it stands it is an enjoyable and satisfying story with a good emotional core at first I was wondering why Patrick's commercial was the 400th commercial instead of something more like 500 or 1,000 or something like that and then I remembered this is the 200th produced episode of this show and with most episodes containing two segments this falls somewhere around the four hundredth story overall give or take some specials some season five shorts and two TV movies 201a Sandy's nut man sandy forces our tree to make a surplus of nuts to feed bikini bottom this is just a solid story it slowly eases you into the conflict by first showing Sandy's tree is weakened and then having sandy try to strengthen it with science which leads to it over producing which leads to sandy having to figure out how to get rid of it all then through some shenanigans with Patrick the Bikini Bottom ice all love the nutty butter she makes from it which causes her to force her tree to over produce and then a shaman that spongebob meets along the way teaches a lesson about how it's bad to ask more from nature than she's able to provide when you get right down to it it's basically jellyfish hunter except no one is really the bad guy she does ask too much of her tree but easily recants as soon as she realizes her mistake and it also helps that her motivation is that she wants to give away food that the Bikini Bottom ice all love instead of doing something selfish like making money off of it it's not really mentioned in the episode but a running theme in the show is that sandy is kind of an outsider in bikini bottom so it makes sense why she'd want to do something that contributes to the community and makes them like her a lot more what turns us from a good story into a really good episode is the shaman character and everything about him he's played by Eric Bauza I think it's pronounced who plays a lot of bit parts and animation and hasn't been in really much that I recognize what startled me though is the fact that he's not an old man he plays the cranky old guy character so well in this episode that I genuinely thought it was one of those old sitcom grandad that's always cranky but no he's only 37 anyway back to the character I like everything about him from his jellyfish hat Ligon thing to the fact that he's a shaman salmon plus the fact that he's grumpy but also really nice at the same time and the jokes surrounding him are great like spongebob looking at his armpit hair and thinking that that's his garden and the fact that spongebob Patrick and Sandy fell asleep at him telling the story oh and the story itself is my favorite part of the episode not on have a really interesting art style and teach an important lesson but it also features a great use of Squidward as a pure butt monkey what's great is that squid isn't even in the episode otherwise but he's only in this story so that Patrick can annoy him and there's also the moon pun it's a real highlight of the episode because it's funny looks great and helps in part the moral lesson of the episode and speaking of the moral here I actually really like what the shaman says because in a lot of episodes of spongebob they take the stance that mass production and industry is bad because of pollution in corruption and destroying nature etc etc which is not entirely untrue and of course is an important thing to teach kids but those other episodes never actually really talk about alternatives it's basically just industry as bad let's stop it but in this one the shaman doesn't tell sandy to stop what she's doing but instead tells her that she can produce this much nutty butter but she should use a bunch of trees instead of overworking one which is a fair compromise that helps out nature and allows the benefits of industry to continue onwards anyway it's a really good episode with an interesting new character of good moral a well-told story and some good laughs episode 201 be alton board an anonymous user causes trouble on the Krusty Krabs new bulletin board now if you were to tell me that there's an episode of Spongebob that is one great big metaphor for posting online anonymously I would tell you that sounds like the absolute worst idea for an episode ever and that there is no way the show could do it without being cringy or making it feel out of place for the technology that the show usually presents or making it be really preachy in terms of being pro censorship or something but I kid you not this episode is brilliant I love it I really do I think what's great is that instead of making it actually about characters posting on the internet they make it about a literal board that the characters are posting anonymous notes to another clever thing is the fact that they brought back bubble bass here in a way that actually makes sense for his character yeah he's had bit parts in episodes like Plankton's good eye and goodbye krabby patty but this is the first time since season 1 but he's actually done something antagonist they canned more in line with his original characterization and having him be an obnoxious guy posting mean comments is an amazing way to include him in the story even if he doesn't actually do that much in the grand scheme of things but I think what I love best about this episode is that it really doesn't take a side in terms of censorship versus free rein anonymous posting instead it just kind of presents all of the good and bad that anonymity and freedom of speech can bring some people are going to use it to be jerks some people are going to use it to be kind some people are going to use it to further their own selfish needs like crabs and when it comes to inflammatory posts some people are going to think they're funny some people are going to think they're mean and some like spongebob are going to seriously take it to heart and have it affect them in a negative way and I also like the fact that ultimately it is all a big misunderstanding by Patrick because that happens on the Internet to people sometimes assume the worst from a comment that really was meant with good intentions and it just kind of highlights some of the struggles that come with communicating on a grand scale at the end of the episode crabs destroys the bulletin board and sweeps all the notes out of the krusty krab sure however spongebob does say that it wasn't the board's fault instead it was everyone else's so I don't really see that as them taking the side of just like destroying the internet or doing some crazy math censorship or something also I think a bit of story and metaphor segregation have to happen there just because this bulletin board in the krusty krab was legitimately causing problems for Krabs's business it's obvious that the people who made this episode understand internet culture at least a little bit because trust me if they didn't this would have been really cringey and in fact instead of being cringy it's actually pretty funny lines like Squidward's saying that he was working at the Krusty Krab ironically and mr. Krabs urging people to feed their hatred and there's also a non Internet related humor like how mr. Krabs was ready to murder an old lady just so she'd write something nice in her will it's dark but it's brief so it's funny and then also how SpongeBob's interpretation of Patrick's line that baseball gloves remind him of his childhood when in reality Patrick just likes the taste of baseball gloves honestly if spongebob wants to get a little topical and do it in a way that still makes sense within the show's universe and doesn't come off as preachy or weird then I'm all for it Kenny the cat might have been a bit odd in this way but bulletin board is spot-on I was very pleasantly shocked and amazed when I realized what this episode was actually about and I do highly recommend it episode 202 a food con castaways spongebob Patrick Squidward and Krabs gets stranded in the wilderness because that's a completely original premise for the show I know I'm going to catch some flack for this but I've got to call it as I see it look if you don't watch the show that much maybe you haven't seen every episode or have you only ever seen every episode once or something like that then I could definitely see you enjoying this episode but from where I stand this episode adds nothing at all new to the show it's similar to club spongebob because the characters are in a kind of similar-looking wilderness and Squidward as well as other characters are unable to eat despite the fact that there's food around because of SpongeBob's own rules it's like to save a squirrel because again characters trapped in the wilderness desperate for food but the most egregious of all of these is the fact that this episode follows the exact same format of a SquarePants family vacation from last season right down to the fact that it starts with a road trip where SpongeBob and Patrick are annoying the other passengers before it just suddenly randomly takes a left turn and the characters are stranded in the wilderness where they can mediate ly find their way out because their destination was like three feet away even some of the little details like the mention of music soothing the savage beasts I can see some jokes in here I didn't really find any of them funny and certainly not funny enough to excuse the fact that this episode has been done in a number of ways and this one does nothing at all to vary it up I really would have rather the episode of VIN about this food convention it's a snowball review I definitely could see the argument for why this is a good or Mattice ode but I'm just kind of sick of having them tell me this story again and again and again if there was some new twist on it really any at all it would be a lot better but no it's just so say me and boring even the ending - they go with a spongebob in slow motion gag which has been done on this show a number of times most recently in company picnics but dating back to usage and even pre movie and the ending where the I eat the Grouse Patty and of course just randomly and conveniently loves it and Krabs gets the award it's predictable it's cheesy eighths cliches that the show has done a number of times in the past and I'm just not going to excuse it what's the point of a show if they're going to keep telling you the same story again and again and again I guess you could call it a very conventional episode oh and there's a bumper sticker on the trailer that says I heart seaweed except the word sea is conspicuously small so yeah it's a drug reference at some point after this video is out I am going to make a square theory on what I consider to be just a bad copying of previous episodes verses one an episode is similar but still good on its own merits so look out for that episode 202 be snail-mail Sponge Bob must learn how to fly after a wacky male misunderstanding once again Sponge Bob is not taking his own advice yet don't need a plane to fly all you need is friendship although maybe he is taking his own advice because he wanted to fly because of friendship jokes aside though this is a particularly zany episode and not just in the misunderstanding the climax of the episode is just plain hijinks it feels like an homage to all those classic black-and-white cartoons that would do this sort of story where the character is just flying in a play and causing all manner of havoc and it works there isn't really much to talk about it's just some zaniness and well I don't think it's quite on par of the first three seasons a ninis it is still fun to watch nonetheless the story is good as well it's definitely an interesting way to set up spongebob flying in an airplane but it definitely works especially with the title being a pun as far as jokes well there's not really anything I laughed at but like I said it's a pretty zany episode so I at least smiled at a lot of the stuff like spongebob splitting the big plane into and the passengers having to heave-ho it back together the tennis match being played on the plane and of course the classic who's flying the plane I was a little bit iffy on the underwear gag but it did turn into a running gag that kind of gets funnier every time it's used I think it's a good episode though it's definitely closer to meh than it is very good the misunderstanding is silly but isn't anything particularly grown worthy and all in all it's just a decently fun episode and I do especially like the fact that they put sandy in as well to teach sponge I had a fly instead of just having some random new character although the sandy know how to fly herself I mean she flies a helicopter sometimes and she is a woman of science but like does that just automatically make her an accomplished pilot as well I mean it seems like something sandy with no but I don't know it's just a little weird and speaking of her training she trained spongebob in a video game and this is the third time this season that this has happened Krabs used one to Train spongebob in tutor sauce spongebob trains is thumbs on one in two thumbs down and then we have this here this definitely isn't a criticism it's just me pointing out an unusual pattern in 9b episode 203 a pineapple invasion plankton search of SpongeBob's house for the formula so much about this episode that just makes sense and I'm kind of amazed they didn't do these things earlier the concept of garyun plankton having to fight against each other and the concept of characters going inside of Gary's shell it seems like they would have done these things years ago but no thanks and gallery have interacted before most notably in Shellback shenanigans but even in that episode the actual interaction between the two is minimal so once again it's nice to see them using a pairing of characters that don't usually get put together and Gary's shell being bigger on the inside is just kind of an obvious spongebob thing since everything is bigger on the inside in this universe but beyond those concepts plankton gets a lot of lines here and spends a lot of the episode either by himself or with Gary and it's usually pretty awesome to just the plankton being plankton gets some great moments in one-liners here like how he says he doesn't like the taste of pineapple and then he tastes the mcGarry's litter and says it's still better than pineapple him wrecking SpongeBob's house almost completely nonchalantly and how he just gets completely wrecked in a fight against Gary and those are just some of the plankton jokes there's also mr. Krabs going on this really long-winded and elaborate speech about how dumb blanked it is and Sponge Bob freaking out about these precious things at his house being wrecked and also a glass of water because he was going to drink that I could easily see this standing along some of the good episodes from the first three seasons because yeah it's good it's really good and one of the cool little touches in this episode is that plankton says what are probably considered to be the three most well-known catchphrases on the show he copies SpongeBob's I'm ready gives his trademark I went to college and in a really funny moment screams my leg that's why it's a little plankton like down there it's especially fitting because it's Doug Lawrence that typically voices the my leg fish oh and both the setup and ending of this story are great I love all of the shenanigans with mr. Krabs having to put on SpongeBob's arm as a nose and searching for plankton in a big cloud of gross skunk smell it definitely starts the episode off with a very memorable event and then I love how it comes back in the end where had plankton been able to smell he would have known that there are toxic fumes inside of Gary's shell and the reveal of just how messed up he looks inside the shell is particularly funny as well as the doctor a weird hatred of people who don't have noses it's really funny it's really memorable it's a good story that even comes full circle and it features everyone's favorite copepod what more could you ask for in a spongebob episode episode 203 be salsa imbecilic is after Plankton's latest scheme terms everyone into idiots sandy and Karen must educate them so much like the last episode this one features an unusual team-up Karen and sandy and in general I am all for getting both of those two characters in the spotlight more often but this episode is dumb it's it's awful it really is first off a large chunk of it is spent with characters being dumb and they go with the laziest way to portray a dumb person they have them go do good and just walk into walls and stuff they don't have clever jokes about this it's just dumb people being dumb in fact they even made Patrick Dumber in this episode Patrick's usually pretty dumb but he's usually not this brain-dead in fact it's actually kind of an pleasant to see it's not just that he's slow or misses the point or whatever he is severely mentally disabled in this episode anyway the point is no I was not amused by all the do humor another problem with this episode is that it's all over the place first it's about this salsa but no the salsa is just an excuse so that they can get to the dumb people but then Karen and sandy focus on trying to make plankton smart again when that fails then they set up their college thing and we get a montage of them educating everyone in bikini bottom but then we suddenly shift and we see that plankton is a bully that's trying to get the formula from crabs but despite graduating early this is all part of his acting class grade months later it's like nobody actually thought this through the concept of plankton spongebob and crabs and the other characters being in a college or a school setting is an interesting one but they do not give that any time to play out so much focus is given to the setup of the dumb humor and then setting up this whole College thing that by the time we actually get to the struggle between plankton and crabs it's just so brief that it's like what's even the point the scene plankton being dumb is one thing but his whole shtick is that he's supposed to be a scientist then he went to college seeing him the anti school here is just kind of against his character in general I get that he was made stupid by the salsa I'm just saying that it's just a weird writing choice to make him be the stupid character here I mean at least make fun of the fact that it's unusual for him and Krabs who's usually anti school he has a whole rant about how school is all a sham in tutor sauce apparently has this huge glowing opinion of it now it's just a weird episode that doesn't know what it wants to be and it completely squandered the potential for a Karen sandy team up by inexplicably shifting back to crabs and plankton and the mislead at the end just doesn't make any sense and feels really forced especially because there's no build up to it it's just plankton trying to steal the recipe from crabs on graduation day but while it was all just acting and the formula was never actually in any danger oh and I almost forgot about the butt licking scene yeah there's this a really gross part where Patrick licks Plankton's really oldest looking butt and plankton is very disturbed by this I can definitely appreciate some clever toilet humor but this was not that this was just disgusting it's obviously a screwball issue really everything about it is just dumb the humors infantile and the focus is scattershot there's some good ideas in here but the execution is just in basilica's 204 a mutiny on the Krusty the Krusty Krab is relocated by a rip current so I'm kind of conflicted on this episode because the Krusty Krab being turned into a ship and getting stuck in a rip current is a cool idea and I do like the sequences of Spongebob steering the Krusty Krab and some other stuff associated with that part of the premise but then you have the other part of the premise which is mr. Krabs being a horrible tyrant which I do not think works here's the thing when you want to portray a character who is an insufferable jerk like mr. Krabs here or I don't know dr. house on house m.d. you have to give them a redeeming quality for why them being a jerk is tolerated typically this is done by making them competent at what they do and sure in this episode mr. Krabs does beat up the monster and save the day however consider this its Krabs is Fault they're all in this situation in the first place he locks them in the krusty krab forces them to spend their money and tells them that there is absolutely nothing to worry about because of his little knee barometer thing which turns out to be completely wrong it's not like Krabs is a tyrant but all man he gets stuff done no he's the tyrant that got you into this situation just because he was able to get you out of it doesn't make him any less of an obnoxious insufferable awful person he's not a good captain he's not a good anything he just just mean for the sake of being mean here and that's apparently something to be celebrated there are other ways they could have fixed this as well maybe have crabs explain to spongebob that sometimes the leader does need to get tough or else tough won't actually get done or maybe have the bikini bottom I treat crabs like dirt in the first place which leads to him being a tyrant later on the other way that this sort of story could have worked would be to have crabs be a tyrant at the beginning and then have him redeem himself at the end but the way it plays out is that he makes everyone beg him for forgiveness and even then he's still not motivated to save the day oh he's just so unlikable here and for once that's actually the point of the episode it's not one of those things where they accidentally made him jerky like what happens with Patrick a lot of the time no the story is just that he is a miserable horrible captain in fact if anything spongebob is most certainly the hero and while thankfully he does get rewarded in the end the reward is his paycheck and he doesn't get nearly enough credit that he deserves for steering the ship trying to keep everyone together volunteering to go fight the monster and being the one who is able to motivate crabs to fight said monster but at the same time there are things too like in the episode like SpongeBob's face and lying about how he'll spend grabs his dime is very very just one bite esque speaking of that dime why is it like a normal coin why isn't it that giant rock thing that he had in can you spare a dime not only have they been actually doing a lot of continuity nods this season it just seems to be an arbitrary contradiction they could have told this exact same story with mr. Krabs his first nickel or something it's not a huge deal but it's distracting and really didn't have to be like this so does my Austrasia with Krabs's character here basically override any of the little enjoyable things I found in this episode or do those things balance this out to a man unfortunately Krabs his behavior does drive it into schoolbag territory it is a huge damper on words otherwise a pretty decent episode I usually don't mind episodes where crabs as the antagonist but the problem here is that the show treats him like he's done a good thing in the end I'm sure it's supposed to be for comedy reasons or something but it all just comes off as really unpleasant also did you know that mr. Krabs created an edible hat called the Hattie Pattie hey I've been working on these videos for a long time not every single fact can be fun to throw for be the whole tooth Patrick is afraid of losing his baby tooth this is actually a really cute episode I like what they did with Patrick's character this season they have greatly minimized his jerky tendencies and played up the more childlike side and that's how Patrick acts here he's just a little kid who doesn't want to lose his tooth because he's afraid of a little change and it's really nice seeing spongebob trying to help him through this rough time I really like the scene with spongebob as the warden with the worms because it's all in Patrick's imagination again Patrick is a stand-in for a child in this episode so it makes sense why he to over-exaggerate spongebob trying to help into him being this bad guy that's out to hurt Patrick's tooth also Patrick drinking the water and becoming the pond is a pretty funny gag and in general it is a pretty funny episode the dentist using this horrible implement to open up a drawer with a much more tame clamp to take Patrick's tooth out the radio broadcasting dramatic stings the horrific teeth on the magazine and the old lady and the story is nice as well it's just your simple losing your tooth story many cartoons have tackled this before but I think that SpongeBob's take here is a very pleasant one and one that might actually help a few kids be more okay with losing their teeth and I especially like the ending twist I did not see that coming it actually managed to be clever and unpredictable using a play on words that I've personally never seen before it's a good story that I'm sure is relatable to some with very likable characters some good comedy and a pretty surprising ending twist of course it's a good episode and there's nice little details too like the backset Patrick once again AIDS doctors and the two dentists name is age mundane which is of course a nice way to show kids the dentist's aren't scary in the slightest although what was up with that empty fishbowl in the dentist's office yeah I know a lot of dentists have fish but the characters are fish so it just raises so many questions as to what the purpose of that fish tank is and that is every episode of Spongebob 9b and also season nine as a whole reviewed I have exactly three notes that fit more for nine B than nine as a whole firstly is the good atmosphere I don't think I really need to elaborate on this because I've said a few times in this video but yeah 9b really gets that atmosphere right the only other season that really strikes me as having this kind of really good atmosphere would be season one so when people say that season nine especially nine B they return to form for SpongeBob well I can agree with that sentiment on at least this aspect secondly Patrick is incredibly likable in ninety not only did they greatly downplay his jerkish ness but they also played up the more lovable aspects of his character even in one of his more harsh appearances in ninety of the fishbowl he's still not nearly as bad as he was in the previous seasons let's not forget that Patrick is the reason why a lot of episodes got scum Bob's even in 9a we still had episode like little yellow book that really played up his more obnoxious characteristics but I feel like there was some sort of conscious effort on the part of the writing team to make sure Patrick was more likeable in 9b and I hope it sticks because it is really nice being able to just like Patrick again and not have to ask myself at the beginning of the episode oh is it going to be one of these Patrick appearances and lastly the comedy is a lot better in ninety than it was in nine eight and in eight as well and seven and six really 9b is the funniest crop of spongebob episode since about season four or five it still doesn't rival the first three seasons but the comedy here is still good so now let's go to the charts 9b has 17 good episodes v met episodes and 7 scum Bob's comparing that to 9a you'll see that there's a lot more good episodes and a lot less mess a little less scum Bob so where does that put the rating 490 well after much deliberation I have to say that the second half of season 9 is a good half season Wow they actually did it they delivered a chunk of content that I could consider as a whole to be good I don't know that I ever thought I'd see the day and while technically this is only half the season and we still have to get to the rating for Nye as a whole I think that this is still a very very good thing is 9 be as good as the first 3 seasons no and it's still not really that close but that is perfectly okay I would never really expect spongebob to be able to reach what it did in the first three seasons nor would I ever expected to be able to just go back to that time and have that exact same style of humor and storytelling a lot of time has passed a lot of writers have come and gone and unfortunately that's just never going to be the case but that doesn't mean that the show can't still be good in a new way and the fact that the show isn't quite as good as our really really really good run of episodes should not diminish from the fact that this is absolutely something to be celebrated all right on to season 9 as a whole looking at this chart it is eerily similar percentage-wise to season four and I think that's about right considering 9a was met and 90 was good but certainly not amazing it does feel right to place it in the upper math category but it is definitely better than season 8 and I think it is a worthy rival of seasons 4 and 5 and if that's the quality that the show is going to be at from here on out then I think that's ok and having almost half the episodes be good is a really good thing all right now on to my notes for season 9 as a whole first of all there's no flying dutchman which struck me as a bit weird because there's been a token flying dutchman appearance in every single season and heck there's even a ghost episode in season 9 but the flying dutchman is mysteriously absent I don't know maybe they couldn't get the voice actor or something also there's new background fish they've been pretty much relying on the same background fish models for well over a decade now it's nice to see some newer models get mixed in with the older ones oh and speaking of the background fish there's actually a running gag in this season old man Jenkins that is the version of old man that is short round and wears glasses I don't know maybe he's not even old man jankins anymore at this point it's repeatedly seen in unfortunate situations this season in little illa book he fell on the toilet and sponge robber fired he's floating on SpongeBob's piers and can't pay for the toilet price at the end in the sewers of Bikini Bottom he also almost gets flushed and those aren't even the only examples I think it's kind of funny to have him be this but monkey background character that finds himself in all of these weird situations that also frequently involve the bathroom it's just another thing that makes this season feel really unique although if they continued onwards I definitely wouldn't complain there's many continuity nods in season 9 the TV show Patrick was watching and squid baby the picture gag in mrs. Puff's house so my leg gag being referenced among others with an extra special mention to mall girl pearl it's nice that they were able to throw in these little Easter eggs that only longtime fans would really pick up on and after bubble buddy returns I'm kind of glad they went to really small subtle references instead of being big and obvious with it and lastly there is a bigger focus this season on the other characters what do I mean by other characters I mean characters that aren't spongebob Patrick gets a great deal of focus in Patrick man Patrick the game executive treatment and what's eating Patrick plankton gets focused in episodes like jailbreak Plankton's pet copy bob ditto pants and pineapple invasion Krabs gets safe-deposit crabs pull up a barrel what's eating Patrick and married to money Squidward gets little yellow book squid defense and squid plus one and sandy gets the fish bowl Sandy's nut mare and salsa in basilica's kind of and of course there's Larry's gym and mall girl pearl and while the show has always had some episodes that are from other characters perspectives namely plankton Squidward and Krabs I think this season went above and beyond in sharing the protagonists role in focus with a lot of the secondary and even tertiary cast which is a great way to add variety to the series and is a good way to tell different stories that you couldn't tell with SpongeBob it's really saying something when four out of the five good episodes in 9a are plankton episodes and of these none of them are traditional steal the formula episodes ikan urchin involves him helping Krabs jailbreak is a lot more focused on the jailbreak it it came from goo lagoon has plankton utilizing a weapon more so than outright tried to steal the formula or trick it out of the characters and Plankton's pet has almost nothing to do with the formula it makes me so happy to see that the writers definitely want to mix things up with plankton and don't want to just rehash the same story ideas again and again sure we did have cliche evil spatula but four out of five of his major appearances shaking up the formula no pun intended is a very good thing and now get ready for a pretty lengthy bottom-5 actually before I get to the five themselves I have to give an honorary number six slot to an episode this was an episode that I think was close to being number five but only just barely got beat out by the actual number five this episode is company picnic in my review I spoke at length about how I thought Plankton's plan was just incredibly stupid from a number of different angles and the conflict in this episode was really flimsy and just kind of insulting to the audience and that is true but this didn't get on the bottom five because the number five choice left me just a bit more irritated than this one and on the positive side of things I do have to say that company Technic looks really good visually number five little yellow book so the reason why this episode is so low on the list is that I do think the first half of the episode is actually pretty good it's really not a bad setup for an episode with Squidward finding SpongeBob's diary and there's some good comedy in here like spongebob finding old man Jenkins in the toilet and the customers being ravenous and I like Squidward reading about SpongeBob's recounting of Squidward cursing at him and Gary biting him in return it's actually a really clever bit here spongebob narrating the situation without hearing either character talk these parts of the episode kept it lower on the bottom five list but man oh man the jerky Patrick have to get one last dig in before they got rid of him in nine days he is very unpleasant here and so is Squidward the second half of the episode has the story go exactly nowhere and the ending just leaves the bad taste in your mouth spongebob is crying and Squidward hasn't learned a thing Squidward's been a jerk in plenty of episodes but usually they give him at least a shred of human decency by having him learn his lesson at the end and in other episodes what Squidward does to spongebob actually isn't all that bad and doesn't go much beyond just being generally rude and negative towards spongebob there's parts of this episode that I like and then there's the rest of it number four married to money the thing about this episode is that much like the rest of 9b it does have a good atmosphere by which I mean it has some very pleasant music it features a wedding and so it's a happy celebration and ceremony etc etc yep just kind of feels nice but the problem is that it isn't the story is flimsy boring predictable and has a very unsatisfying ending all around the fact that the tone makes it seem nicer than it is actually makes it a lot worse it's not a sharks versus pods situation where the atmosphere is able to make up for the white story here there's just so many things that are unsatisfying about this story and really the ending especially is what kills me here endings are very important it's the last thing you leave the audience with and while spongebob usually does have dumb gag endings at the very end typically they at least wrap up the story before they do their stupid ending like in the fishbowl yes they have that dumb gag at the very end where it turns out that they're really studying Squidward but even before that they do have an actual ending to the story in this one the ending is lengthen is revealed and then Krabs is going to be alone I guess adding the usual stupid gag in the form of having to tip the bellboy waiter guy is even worse than usual because there's no substance that even comes before it in terms of positives I can still say that I did like everything involving pearl in the episode and the episode's problem is more of a lack of substance than the presence of things that I really don't like which is why I think it's better than the rest of the episodes on this list number three salsa imbecilic is the comedy in this episode is dumb jokes that's pretty much the bulk of what it has to offer you the frustrating thing is that this stupid scene happens smack dab in the middle of the episode as well it's not at the very beginning where you could forget it happen to enjoyed the rest of the episode it's not at the very end where you can at least enjoy the first part of the episode no it's right in the middle bridging together the first part which is Plankton's plan and the second part which is this weird college story it's just this like two minute long void where nothing happens in the story and it's just a bunch of dumb jokes any momentum and intrigue that was building with Plankton's original plan at the start is just immediately killed right here and then because this goes on so long and this comes before it the whole college plot just doesn't have any time I cannot get emotionally invested in what's going on because we're just so suddenly thrown right into this conflict of blank being a bully and crabs reinventing the krabby patty formula and of course all of the stupid jokes and this weird other plot of crabs and plankton takes away from what should have been the focus of the episode Karen and Sandi I like the fact that not only does the episode pair them together but it does put them in a scenario in which it makes sense for them to bond over seeing as Sandy's a scientist and Karen's a computer they're both some of the smartest people in town but what a wasted potential it is this is also one of those episodes that kind of gets worse the more you watch it as the dumb jokes weren't funny the first time but by god are they definitely not funny the second or third times number two squid baby this episode basically plays out like a better version of a season 6 episode what I mean by this is that that season was known for a lot of these quote-unquote squid torture episodes where Squidward gets beaten up a lot and generally doesn't do too much wrong to even deserve it but the thing is they actually do a decent job averting a lot of the problems that those episodes run into Patrick gets called out by Spongebob when he hurts Squidward's head on the ceiling Patrick also does a pretty daring rescue to help Squidward and only lands the road on his head because he was definitely trying to save him and not add up just being stupid and considerate and in general the two of them do care about Squidward's well-being and really are trying their best to nurse him back to health but even still the episode does follow a similar structure to the ones that they've done a number of times in the past and everyone kind of got sick of years ago when they overused it it also has that really cringey stuff with spongebob and patrick acting like genuine babies at the start of it the general uncomfortableness of the fact that Squidward is turned into a baby and at the end has a poopy diaper which is pretty gross and the episodes really not funny and here's the thing even if you strip away the other bad elements like your fun with the bad stuff that happens - Squidward because spongebob and patrick are trying their best or maybe you're not as weirded out by some of the adult baby poopy diaper stuff as i am at the end of the day the episode is just a rehash of Rockabye by valve and to an extent Gugu gas in fact the first half of the episode pretty much is rockabye bivalvan the second half of the episode is similar to goo goo gas so on top of a number of already comfortable bad and not funny things it's just not original despite the fact that it's number two and I am saying that it's pretty bad I don't actually think it's completely entirely miserably awful in fact that the number two worst episode in this season is one that I don't think is quite as bad as pretty much any of the other bottom fives from season 5 onwards is a very good thing even some of the worst of this season still has some redeeming qualities I mean even season 8 that was generally towards the middle still had at least a handful of episodes that were pretty dang bad scum bobs but this one it's bad oh yeah it is bad but it's not that bad but you know what is that bad my number 1 this should surprise exactly no one but it is spongebob you're fired honestly I think that this episode is almost up there with truth or square in terms of wasting the audience's time and not having a clue exactly what it wants to do with its story there's something wrong with pretty much every section of the episode the part with spongebob actually being fired is over such a stupidly trivial thing and him crying and crying and crying goes on and on the part with him moping around the house is so dry and boring him and Patrick being funemployed is also really slow and boring and it's just a slog to get through then the whole section with spongebob trying to get a new job making only Krabby Patties getting kicked out and then later getting kidnapped by each and every one of these food places is just just badly written it's repetitive and completely illogical why is every single one of these places trying to kidnap him he wanted to work for them the scene with him preparing food for Gary is irrelevant it does nothing for the story and it's not funny it literally just feels like a scene in there to fill time and then the ending is one hundred and eighty six percent predictable do you think maybe you could come up with something a little more creative than the Krusty Krab went to Krusty crap when spongebob wasn't around to keep everything together this episode is way worse than squid baby and way worse than anything else season 9 has to offer I think it is one of the most obnoxious specials and I can't even see the potential for a good episode in here because even the base idea of Spongebob being fired as an episode has already kind of been done in a number of different ways SpongeBob had to take a mandatory vacation and bummer vacation he has been fired before in karate choppers he thought he was fired in model sponge and he's even tried to leave of his own volition in as-seen-on-tv not to mention the time that he and squid went on strike or the time he was forced to work at the Chum Bucket and these are just the times I remember off the top of my head point is save for a very brief fight scene I can't find anything redeemable about this episode the writers say that Nickelodeon wasn't involved in this episode outside of just renaming the title but if that's the case then I just simply don't understand how something this bad could come from a season that in general is way better than this and that's my bottom five or technically six I guess as for the episodes that didn't make it on the list in general they do all have at least one or two things that redeems them a little bit or they're bad elements aren't that bad compared to some of the worst from other seasons patrick-man does have that great climax squid defense is a predictable kind of boring episode that almost got a mess safe-deposit crabs might be boring and knee and ring but it doesn't leave me that bored or that frustrated with it and I feel the same way about sanctuary I did like some parts of mutiny on the Krusty food con castaways is mostly bad for the repeated plot and had that not been a problem the episode would have been at least a man and the fishbowl does have some psychology in it which I do like and that covers every scum Bob in the season and now for the top five episodes of season nine number five mall girl pearl this episode is number five because it is 100% a breath of fresh air in a show that has been going on for over 200 episodes there was a very conscious effort here to make this episode different new setting different protagonists and a larger focus on background continuity jokes and while yes Larry's Jim did do something similar I think mall girl pearl beats it out because it doesn't need to rely on spongebob at all to carry the story and make no mistake I'm not saying it's good because it's different it's the fact that it's different but also enjoyable Betty White makes a wonderful guest star and the story though not incredibly crazy or anything is still very satisfying to watch pearl is likable and you understand her motivations the friendship seems genuine and sweet and there are some really solid gags in here not even counting the ones that are just in the background its episodes like this that helped the show from falling into mediocrity again number four bulletin board now you might have expected that this episode was going to land higher on the top five and honestly before really thinking about it I kind of thought it would too after all the metaphor for this episode being about the Internet is amazingly clever and there's some really funny gags in there related to it but the reason why this is lower on the list it's just the fact that the literal story does kind of suffer a little bit like when you get right down to it the middle of the episode is just a lot of characters reacting to things that have been written on the board not much story progress is happening and then when we finally get to the climax and crabs SpongeBob and Squidward stake out to see who is the one posting all these messages they find out it's Patrick and then mr. Krabs destroys the board and they all go knitting I mean I'm not saying I wanted them to beat up Patrick or anything because he did seem to have a good heart in all of this but from a story perspective it is a little bit of an anti-climax like the episode should have been building to something greater or more interesting I don't know maybe crabs destroying the bulletin board in plain sight and all of the other customers trying desperately to save their notes or something or perhaps some sort of scene where Patrick is desperately trying to disguise who he is while hiding behind a bunch of notes maybe I don't know exactly what could have been done but I do think that the literal story of the episode could be made to be a little bit more interesting not that it's bad it just doesn't have a lot going on and if you're thinking wow he's being really negative on an episode that he put as the fourth best episode of the season just remember that I do still think very highly of it and the only reason why I'm not going about it is because well I already did that in the actual review number three Sandy's nut mare this is just an all-around good episode I wouldn't say that it really amazingly excels at any one or two aspect but rather that every aspect of the episode is just really good good guests are funny jokes good moral a sequence with the unique art style it's Sandi focused the character who doesn't get that much attention compared to other main characters I even like the fact that it's about Sandy's tree which is something that's in most of the episodes that she is in it doesn't really get to do much ordinarily this episode is the opposite of a nightmare in fact it's not a nightmare it's a nut Mayr ooh that one was bad number two pineapple invasion okay so the reason this beats out almost every other episode in the season is just that I think that this episode is really really funny funnier than most post movie episodes I truly can't overstate how funny I think this episode is and beyond that it features a memorable opening set piece and a great team up or rivalry I guess in this case and my number one favorite episode of Spongebob season 9 is Plankton's pet yeah the best two episodes of season 9 in my opinion both involve plankton and a pet huh anyway do I really need to say how great this episode is I'm sure you've all heard it by now it's an episode so good that it would fit in not just with the first three seasons but with some of the best episodes from the first three seasons plankton is almost always a fun character it's a story archetype that is proven to work very well there's a lot of great dark humor and other jokes about spot being really small and there's a fun climax with some good twists that are loosely based in real life science also something that doesn't get pointed out too much is the fact that spongebob and plankton actually bond pretty nicely in the episode plankton actually thanks spongebob for helping him look for spot it really shows our dynamic of a character plankton is so yeah put this one up there as another one of my favorites from the post movie era right up there with no head for Pat and it's a spongebob Christmas and that season 9 for you I can't really believe that we finally reached this point it's been a long time coming and season 9 was instrumental in me deciding to make the series in the first place it's been a pretty crazy ride and I'm definitely not stopping here but I think at this point I've definitely proven that not all modern spongebob is bad and even in some of the worst seasons there are still some hidden gems and some mediocre seasons that still have a significant amount of good episodes because of the nature of the show one Episode could be absolutely abominably miserable or you hate all the characters and everything that goes on in the story and the one right before it can be an amazing beautiful piece of art that's funny witty and meaningful so I've certainly gleaned some patterns from reviewing the series one season at a time really each episode should be taken and judged individually and sweeping generalizations certainly don't give you the whole picture so as always thank you to encyclopedia spongebob eeeh sponge body mania Andrew for the awesome tomfoolery remix and in comp tech for the rest of the music and my artist Aaron and a super thanks to all my patrons out there thank you guys so very much with an extra special thanks to sue can zoo the DS guys Vigi bros maids voice as well as those who have donated large sums in the past ash fluff houston bling w and mr tortellini zero zero and i need to announce that my patreon is no longer going to be used I am very appreciative of everyone who's helped me out over the years but it's not a service I wish to continue using well I'm off to have a lonely convenient dinner for one see you guys in season said hi guy rules out fresh

Channel: PIEGUYRULZ

Views: 1,826,792

Rating: 4.1351671 out of 5

Keywords: Review, Cartoon, Cartoons, Nicktoons, nick, pie, pieguy, pieguyrulz, SpongeBob, SquarePants, Rant, cartoon, Patrick, Squidward, every, episode, of, reviewed, analysis, SpongeBob You're Fired, It Came From Goo Lagoon, Goodbye Krabby Patty, Patrick the Game, Bulletin Board, Sandy's Nutmare, Squid Baby, Little Yellow Book, The Whole Tooth, Tutor Sause, Lost in Bikini Bottem, Plankton's Pet, Jailbreak, SpongeBob Season 9, Larry's Gym, Mall Girl Pearl, Sold!, Lame and Fortune, Pineapple Invasion

Id: UFkaonNO4Xk

Length: 177min 50sec (10670 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 11 2017