Whirly Brains

TISS will finally be airing in the US in about 2 weeks. Season 10 will then be over. But when do you guys think the DVD will come out?

<p>I always wondered something about Whirly Brains... I need to know the timeline of it and I have a few questions: </p><p>Is this before SB-129 due to the timecard? (I would think so) </p><p>Is this after Ugh's past sections? (Because it takes place in the past) </p><p>Is this after Patrick! The Game because Patrick knows what a game is? </p><p>Does this episode before or after Pickles? Because Bubble Bass is in it? </p><p>Just curious </p>

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The new Spongebob episode was “eh”. </p><p>The much-awaited (by me) season 10 is finally here. I was very excited because of what I’d been hearing from Vincent Waller (Supervising producer) about it. I’d heard that the characters would be allowed to frequently go off-model and move like wacky cartoon characters again, there was new leadership, the creator came back, they would be changing the way that they approached stories, and to quote Mr. Waller, “We are injecting the funny back into each and every episode.” He made it sound like a complete overhaul. Needless to say, I was very excited. Well, how did it turn out? Didn’t you read the title? </p><p>By far the biggest (and best) change has been to the animation. Season 10 brings back the pre-movie staple of having the characters go off-model continually instead of having them always stay on-model. They move and look like cartoon characters again. They’re expressive again. The animators and storyboarders have been allowed to be a part of the creative process again, and it’s wonderful, and now that the show’s in HD, it looks better than ever. Of all the aspects of the show, this is the one I thought was least likely to change, because of how fundamental and subtle it was, but this shows that nothing is above being reexamined. </p><p>And now we get to my problems with the episode, and by extension, the format. </p><p>Writing-wise, this episode is basically your typical post-movie episode, but the episodes have way more jokes in them; it feels like a hyperactive version of what we were getting before. This is both good and bad because one of the problems with previous seasons was the severely reduced number of jokes. Increasing the number of jokes is a step in the right direction, but the problem is that it isn’t enough to bring it back on par with seasons 1-3. </p><p>This episode’s, and by extension, the new format’s problem, is that pre-movie Spongebob’s humor was very…varied, and this just keeps drawing from the same few categories of jokes. What do I mean? Whirly Brain’s humor mostly comes from wacky slapstick and the funny faces the characters make because of the wackier animation. Now, I love me some wacky slapstick and funny faces; those were cornerstones of old Spongebob, but that shouldn’t be all there is. </p><p>Classic Spongebob had lots of different kinds of jokes: </p><p>We had witty dialogue, lines like advanced darkness, 24, wumbo, the ugly barnacle story. Even despite the few lines that became memes in the fandom, we would get a ton of things like Spongebob inviting some guy he hadn’t seen since kindergarten to his party, and the guy so casually says “Well, I guess it’s time to move again.” Or when Spongebob was lost with all of Bikini Bottom looking for him, and someone peered into an erupting geyser, got horribly burned, and said “Well…at least I still have my personality.” Or Plankton’s birthday and college jokes from his debut episode. Or Spongebob and Patrick’s celebrating their victory of having stolen a balloon in Life of Crime. And “Ravioli, Ravioli, give me the formuoli.” This episode barely tries to do anything funny with the dialogue; the 2 times it does, it’s “wacky”, not low-key/casual like the preceding examples. I’m not opposed to wacky gag-diologue; I love it, but they could AND SHOULD do more with it than that. For the most part, they don’t try to utilize it to make the show better. The old writers saw every single aspect of the show as a tool in their toolbox and did as much with it as possible. The writers now don’t much seem to consider the dialogue and only seem to pay mind to the gag moments. And the lack of low-key, casual, “smarter” dialogue jokes is indicative of how the new writers only care about gag humor and have no interest in the low-key or know how to be funny with it. To make things clear, my problem isn’t the presence/a perceived overuse of gag humor as it’s a favorite of mine too, but the complete lack of everything else. </p><p>Old Spongebob had a lot surreal visual gags, like when Mr. Krabs was outside fighting off a giant, photorealistic, human hand trying to stick him with a fork, or when Spongebob says to Patrick “Don’t worry, Patrick! There’s lots of money in the First National Back of Spongebob! Follow MEEE!”, and he summons a rainbow, and they both ride it 10 feet. Or when Spongebob was in one of the Krusty Krab toilets, and I guy looked in there, and it just showed a live action Sponge, and the guy said, “Oh, that’s real nice.” And who could forget the painting close-ups and time cards!? All of the surreal, visual gags gave the show a more “creative” feeling to it, by which I mean it reminds me of walking around in a school and seeing all the arts and crafts projects. I like that feeling. The visual gags in this are only the show-offy, stop-the-episode-to-do-this kind; they never get “abstract” or for-the-audience-to-pick-up-on like the visual gags of old. </p><p>There were often little visual gags for the audience to pick up on. I can’t think of any right now, but something that comes to mind is when Burger Beard finds the magic book on a booby-trapped, deserted island at the beginning of the 2nd movie that can make anything written in it become reality, and we can see that it’s a library book. I remember that old Spongebob did stuff like that all the time. Constant little things like this make the show seem smarter. </p><p>There were a lot of jokes revolving around the characters just acting like normal people, like Squidward saying “Are you going to order something or just make friends with the paneling?” and “If there’s anything else I can do, please hesitate to ask”, and how both he and Mr. Krabs were treating Spongebob in the first episode. </p><p>If you were willing to look below the surface, there was a surprising amount of jokes related to real life situations.  Again, makes the show seem smarter. Things like learning to tie your shoes, having a school bully, procrastinating on a huge school assignment, the “You got a job” scene from Can You Spare a Dime, and “I’ll fake my way through this just like I did in high school!” I had no idea that would become my life. </p><p>Even the story itself was viewed by the writers as another tool of comedy, some great examples being the “I don’t need it” scene from Tea at the Treedome, how in Arrgh, Mr. Krabs was going crazy, and then the episode ended with The Flying Dutchman giving Mr. Krabs a fake, cheap, consolation prize treasure chest that was based on the real treasure they found after taking the real treasure for himself. There was Walking Small, where Plankton tried to train Spongebob to be more assertive, and then the resulting montage where Spongebob undid all of Plankton’s plans. The entire plot of Hooky. And everyone’s favorite ending, the ending of The Fry Cook games. This episode doesn’t try to make the story itself funny until the ending, so it just feels like a collection of individual gags inside an uninspired, uninteresting story. </p><p>Speaking of the story, I don’t like how the episodes are still plot-driven. They were character-driven before the 1st movie, but then after that, they switched to being plot-driven. What’s the difference? Character driven stories endear you to the characters. They’re more about the characters’ personalities and interactions and drama than they are about the story. The writers just come up with a situation and then say “How would these characters act in this situation?” So it feels like the characters are writing it. The episodes feel like if you could put these characters in these situations in real life, what you saw in the episode is totally what would’ve happened. I know both story types are technically written by writers because everything written is written by writers, but with plot-driven stories, I’m very aware that what I’m seeing is being controlled. I feel like I’m being guided on a tour. With the absence of charming characters. Now, that’s not to say that I dislike plot-driven stories or find them inferior, but the key to plot driven stories is that you feel like you’re being taken for a ride, with lots of twists and revelations and all the pieces coming together. Something like South Park or Archer. But because Spongebob is a kid’s show, they’re not gonna do that. They’re not utilize the plot-driven format to its full effect. So they’re going with plot-driven stories and then doing nothing with the plot, and sacrificing what was good about the show before to do that. </p><p>This eclectic approach to the jokes is also how we control pacing. If we have a bunch of gags in a row, it’s gonna make the episode feel faster paced, because they’re cramming in a bunch of things where the episode has to stop to do them. However, if you have some flashy gags, and make up the difference with all these other kinds of jokes, despite having lots of jokes, the episode’s gonna feel noticeably slower paced. That’s how old Spongebob was able to have so many jokes per episode, and yet it had a patience to it, and I might even go so far as to say they had more jokes than Whirly Brains. Having the humor be just slapstick/funny faces/characters screaming feels like the equivalent of jingling keys in front of an infant. </p><p>Having so many categories of jokes to pull from made the show have more dimensions to it; the more low-key/casual jokes also had the benefit of making the show and the characters seem smarter. It also did wonders for comedic timing. It kept each individual joke fresh and unexpected, making them even funnier than they would’ve been otherwise. If an episode keeps doing the same kind of joke over and over again, you start expecting each individual joke. Making this even better is that so many of the jokes fell into multiple categories. This is also part of how they were able to flesh out the characters so well as well as achieving that CHARM. The characters aren’t annoying in this, and that’s good, but it’s not enough for the characters to simply not annoy you; they have to charm you. Having lots of different kinds of jokes lets us see more sides of characters. Having 1 kind of joke only lets us see 1 side of characters. One charming scene that always comes to mind is when Spongebob Challenged Doodlebob to a duel. Another is when Spongebob and Patrick were going to fake fight, and Spongebob called Patrick tubby, or Patrick wanting to turn to the good side after Spongebob Busted him in Hall Monitor. </p><p>Speaking of characters, the show understood that there was more to a comedy that just the jokes and made an effort to craft characters that endeared you and felt fleshed out. Spongebob, especially, even had a wittiness about him. This format only cares about cheap, momentary gags and doesn’t care about character. </p><p>Also, there were a only a few moderately funny jokes, and most of the jokes aren’t funnier than the ones from the other post-movie seasons. Your average joke in seasons 1-3 is funnier than your average joke in this. Another joke that comes to mind is when Spongebob becomes a hall monitor vigilante and says “This looks like a joke for the <i>hall monitor!</i>”, and his voice got much deeper and more heroic at the end. Yet another example of clever humor where the writers got creative and thought to use every aspect of a show, no matter how small, even something often overlooked like sound. </p><p>In summation, the writers need to do what the show did for the animation and up their game and get more creative. They need to view every aspect of the show as a potential for entertainment and get as much out of it as possible. Post-movie Spongebob dropped so much of that, and season 10 improves on just a couple of those things while leaving the rest at the wayside. The continuing lack of it all gives this episode a basic, stripped-down feeling. It’s only a MARGINAL improvement over the previous post-movie seasons. </p><p>INB4: Now, you might be thinking “How can you judge the season after seeing just the 1st episode? Isn’t it way too early for that?” No. While different episodes of a show will have different stories and will vary in quality, you can still watch 1 episode and get a sense of the way the show is. </p>

When the screenshot was released for Whirly Brains, SpongeBob was seen in it, and I got his Season 10 design. <figure class="article-thumb tright show-info-icon" style="width: 159px"> <figcaption> </figcaption></figure>