Mooncation

Template:Episode/161a

Characters

• SpongeBob SquarePants
• Patrick Star
• Monkey agents ^(debut)
• Sandy Cheeks
• Mr. Bakerman ^(debut)
• Grandpa Cheeks ^(mentioned)
• Frankie Billy ^(cameo)
• Ernest Borgnine ^(cameo)
• Carol ^(mentioned)
• Carol's father ^(mentioned)
• Bull ^(mentioned)
• Toad ^(mentioned)
• Fuel gauge
• Sorry ^{(deleted scene)}

Synopsis

SpongeBob and Patrick go to Sandy's treedome, but are knocked aside by monkeys leaving her home. They hold a slide carousel, mentioning they confiscated it. SpongeBob and Patrick ask Sandy what's going on, and she says she has a copy of the slide carousel to show them. The show begins.

File:Mooncation 022.jpg

One of Sandy's vacation slides

In the show, SpongeBob meets Sandy, who is preparing for a trip to the moon. She asks him to help her with her luggage, but he runs off to the bakery. He tries to take a number, but gets tangled in the tickets from the dispenser, to the baker's annoyance. The baker asks for "Number 12," and SpongeBob gives him his ticket. Through gritted teeth, the irritated baker asks him what he'd like. SpongeBob says he'd like a bon voyage sheet cake with "yummy letters." He asks the baker to write, "Have fun on the moon," but thinks of what would rhyme with moon (goon, rune, noon, tune), while the baker angrily suggests loon, but he goes with "See you soon." He takes the cake to Sandy's, but her rocket just started the countdown. It lifts its ladder, but SpongeBob leaps on, and into the ship. Sandy is annoyed, and says she must adjust for the newly added weight of SpongeBob. The ship blasts off, and soon they're in space. While in there, SpongeBob presents her with the cake. She warns him that food that is not contained will fall apart in a zero-gravity environment, which the cake promptly does. She says everything will be fine unless it gets into the vent, and once again, the cake does just that. She climbs into a special suit and goes out to remove the cake from the vents. While standing out there, she takes a bit of the cake and says it could use "more nuts." She returns to the ship, and the moon is getting closer. Sandy picks a crater as a good place to land the ship.

SpongeBob and Sandy "moonboarding."

When they exit the ship, Sandy sandboards on the moon, showing off many of her moves, such as the "Flippity-Doo Dah," the classic Texas tail grab (where Sandy grabs her tail to the shape of Texas with a star on it ), and the 7-20 nut-job (where she slices a moon rock to an acorn, and eats it), including one where she lies on Saturn's rings; the "Tour de Saturn."

Sandy lassos the rocket.

When it's SpongeBob's turn to sandboard, he floats away, since he's too light in the moon's gravity. Sandy uses a lasso made with a rope and a moon rock, and tells SpongeBob to grab it. He does, and falls to the moon. While screaming and holding onto the moon rock, he shows amazing skills, which impress Sandy. SpongeBob tries again, but this time, his board crashes into the fuel tank, causing it to leak. Sandy pulls SpongeBob back to the ship, telling him they need to return home while there's still enough fuel left. They manage to make it back to Earth, but the steep dive means they'll turn into a giant fireball, which causes SpongeBob to panic. Sandy goes outside to "grab this bull by the horns" and lassos the ship, pulling it out of its dive. It flies over Bikini Bottom, doing loop-de-loops, and eventually crashing to the ground. SpongeBob sees an unconscious Sandy lying on the ground and tearfully apologizes for ruining her vacation. Sandy tells him he didn't ruin her vacation; she had a great time. She plans on taking him with her to Mars next, then jokingly suggests he bring her cakes more often, and they laugh.

Production

Promotional Art

A postcard for the episode

Music

( ‣ ) Production music

( • ) Original music

( ◦ ) SpongeBob music

 ‣ Paranormal [#64] - Harry Lubin [Title card]
 ‣ Spongeburglar - Nicolas Carr ["We got the slides, sir."]
 ‣ Secret Agent 00 SquarePants - Nicolas Carr [Sandy takes SpongeBob and Patrick inside her treedome]
 ‣ Against All Odds - Paul Lawler [Rocket revealed]
 • Steel Licks 8 - Jeremy Wakefield ["I'll be right back!"]
 • You're Nice - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob buys a cake]
 ‣ Cosmos Adventure - John Fox [Rocket launch]
 ‣ Missile Disaster - John Fox [Cake disintegrates]
 ‣ Beyond the Galaxy - Larry Hochman [Sandy's special spacesuit]
 ‣ Unknown Track 46 - Nicolas Carr [Origami]
 ‣ Star Trekkers 1 - Steve Marston [Rocket lands on the moon]
 ‣ Aquarium - Eric Gemsa, Bernard Rabaud [Camp set up on the moon]
 ‣ The Grinder - Rolf Krueger [Sandy doing moon crater boarding]
 ‣ Moon Walk - John Fox ["Nothing like extreme sports in zero gravity."]
 ‣ Alien Spacecraft A - Gregor F. Narholz [SpongeBob floats away]
 ‣ Monster Wave - Nicolas Carr, Fabian Fernandez, James King [SpongeBob grabs a rock and falls]
 ‣ Soap Opera Scene 1 - Hiram Titus [Patrick watching TV]
 ‣ Monster Wave - Nicolas Carr, Fabian Fernandez, James King [SpongeBob jumps from the satellite/"Watch this, Sandy."]
 ‣ Star Trekkers 2 - Steve Marston [Leak in fuel tank]
 • Steel Licks 6 - Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob takes a picture]
 ‣ Star Trekkers 3 - Steve Marston [Rocket leaves moon]
 ‣ Seven Seas - Oded Tzur [Sandy lassos the nose of the rocket]
 ‣ The Assignment - Gregor F. Narholz [Rocket crash lands]
 ‣ Disturbing Facts A - Gregor F. Narholz ["Oh my gosh!"]
 • Steel Licks 3 - Jeremy Wakefield ["I'm sorry I ruined your vacation to the moon."]
 • Bikini Bottom Bound - Nicolas Carr, Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [Ending]

Release

• This episode is available on the SpongeBob's Runaway Roadtrip, Complete Eighth Season, On the Road, The Best 200 Episodes Ever, SpongeBob SquarePants Vol. 13 and Next 100 Episodes DVDs.

Trivia

General

• This episode was available on the SpongeBob's Runaway Roadtrip DVD, released earlier in 2011, before it aired on television.
• This episode premiered in Canada on November 9, 2011 which was 1 day before it aired in the United States.

The Proton-K booster, lifting Zarya into orbit.

Zarya, on which the doctored image came from.

• This episode is similar to "Sandy's Rocket," as SpongeBob and Sandy were previously going to the moon in this episode and it features a rocket.
• When SpongeBob sings "Going to the Moon! Moon trip!" repeatedly, it is a reference to "Sandy's Rocket," when SpongeBob sings "Going to the Moon! Moon ride!" repeatedly.
• This episode marks the third time space is seen. The first is "Sandy's Rocket" and the second is "A SquarePants Family Vacation."
• This was the first episode Vincent Waller worked on since the season 4 episode "Skill Crane," and was also the first of two episodes that he and Sean Charmatz worked on together.
• This is the fourth of the five episode vacation miniseries on Nickelodeon.
• This is the fourth appearance of primates on the show. The first is "I Had an Accident," the second is "Chimps Ahoy," and the third is "Friend or Foe."
• Earth stayed the same in the background. In fact, it was the famous image of Earth, The Blue Marble, taken by the Apollo 17 crew, that SpongeBob "held."
• When Sandy is moon-crater-boarding, the music is similar to the music in "Prehibernation Week."
• The beginning of this episode is very similar to "Sandy's Rocket," only the rocket is brown and the one on "Sandy's Rocket" was white. The rocket bared some resemblance to a US (currently grounded) Taurus 1 Minotaur I or Italian Vega Rocket (the esa's newest booster) with first stage removed.
  • This is also the second time someone attempted to go to the moon in the series. The first was also "Sandy's Rocket."
• This is the third episode where Nickelodeon Animation Studio has appeared in the series, the first being "The Sponge Who Could Fly" and the second being "Truth or Square."
• There is a brief scene at Nickelodeon Animation Studios where a man is seen standing at the front entrance as he looks up high in the sky to see a small rocket passing by. That man is Ernest Borgnine, the voice actor of Mermaid Man. This is his only physical appearance in the series, as he died shortly after the episode aired.
• This is the second time within the vacation mini-series that SpongeBob flies near the moon, the first being "A SquarePants Family Vacation." The family boat-mobile flew into a crescent moon and crashed into a cow jumping over it.
• This is the only episode of the five-part vacation miniseries not to feature Mr. Krabs.
• This episode was rated PG in Canada.
• When SpongeBob was standing on the moon, he didn't float away (which is in tune with the laws of physics as the moon does have gravity) but when he was about to "moonboard" he needed a rock to hold him down, then after he crashed into the rocket he didn't need the rock.
• In this episode, SpongeBob says he doesn't know what corn is despite the fact that he had corn in his mouth in the previous episode.
• This episode marks SpongeBob's second trip to the Moon. The first is in "Sandy's Rocket."
• In the Croatian dub, the episode name is "Put na Mjesec," which translates to "Trip to Moon."

Cultural references

• When SpongeBob and Sandy "separate," it is similar to how most spacecraft and Space Shuttles separate/stage/jettison the lower stages of the spacecraft.
• The satellite SpongeBob hits is actually a doctored image of the International Space Station's Zaryia Module, the first one of the entire complex shot up in 1998. The actual module has only 2 solar panels and is based on the Russian FGB spacecraft, a derivative of the Soviet TKS spacecraft.

Errors

• When Sandy's rocket is activated, Sandy's suitcases are not there, but once Sandy shows up, all her suitcases are there.
• It's impossible to get to Saturn just by jumping off the moon, and if it was, it would take many decades to arrive. For NASA's Cassini Huygens, it took 7 years to get to Saturn.
• Normally, a fire cannot start in space, it needs a flammable substance. Spacecraft and rockets need liquid nitrogen.
• Sandy was shown to take her helmet off in space, however if you actually did outside the International Space Station or a Soyuz-TMA capsule that's not docked to station, you would eventually die.
• Sandy, and planet Saturn were not to scale size-wise.
• Sandy and SpongeBob were both at the middle of the rocket when they boarded, but were shot up, from the bottom at liftoff.
  • Also, the seats traveled a very far way. In real rockets, there would be almost no room at all to move, thanks to machinery, or storage.
• Sandy skated on Saturn's rings, however planetary rings are not solid, they are just asteroids that orbit the planet.
• When Sandy jumped off the moon, she went really high, but in real-life, she would've only jumped 4 meters.

Tom Kenny listed for playing "Sorry."

• The end credits feature an unknown character called "Sorry" who was/is played by Tom Kenny. Despite Vincent Waller being writer on this episode, he said that he does not remember this character when answering a question about it in August 2017.
• When this episode (along with "Mr. Krabs Takes a Vacation") premiered in Poland on July 14, 2012, it was mistakenly aired in Romanian language instead of Polish. When they reran on February 3, 2013, it was mistakenly aired in Spanish. Both episodes finally aired in Polish language on February 26, 2013.

Video