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At Sandy's treedome, Sandy rakes her tree's autumn leaves into a pile that forms the shape of Texas. Sandy goes to tell SpongeBob she is finished but finds herself stepping on the leaves SpongeBob was meant to rake up. SpongeBob demonstrates his inability to rake the leaves quickly due to his miniature rake. Sandy tells SpongeBob to move on to something else as she continues her own chores at a brisk pace. SpongeBob can't understand why Sandy's in such a hurry, so she reminds him that she's hibernating the following week. She explains further that it's when she goes to sleep for the entire winter, a "mammalian thing" that sea creatures don't need to worry about. With only 168 hours left to go before then, Sandy has many activities she's desperate to do. SpongeBob promises to commit all the time he's not working for Mr. Krabs to play with Sandy, an offer she enthusiastically takes him up on.
Their activities that run day and night include sand-boarding, trying to knock each other off the top of the Sea Needle with giant ear cleaners, "Extreme Jacks," and "Find the Hay in the Needle Stack." These prove to be extremely dangerous, and SpongeBob, much less hardy than Sandy, can just barely avoid getting killed. He goes into hiding under Patrick Star's house to escape from her, and Sandy, overly worrying for his safety, forces everyone in Bikini Bottom to form an unnecessary search party for SpongeBob.
Sandy has them search in dangerous places such as sulfur fields, leech farm, and a poison sea urchin cove.
"Uh... I can explain."
After days of searching with no success, they all want a break, but she won't relent. They ask for time to take care of their children, but Sandy merely suggests to have them crawl into places that anyone can't reach. With the di
"I'm ready, I'm ready!"
ssent growing, Sandy goes mad saying that no one is leaving until they find SpongeBob. The townspeople try to fool Sandy with objects in SpongeBob's shape and color like a cereal box and a banana, but she doesn't buy any of that. One fish points to SpongeBob supposedly up in the sky, but as Sandy looks up and turns back in confusion, she finds that everyone has gone, taking their chance to also hide under Patrick's rock.
Still frantic, Sandy starts literally destroying the city in her search for SpongeBob. The townspeople express how safe they feel under the rock, as does SpongeBob, whom they unceremoniously throw out for Sandy to find. Sandy rushes to SpongeBob as he desperately tries to hide again, to no avail. Sandy joyfully pulls SpongeBob for a hug before tugging him along to go "atom smashing," but he pleads for her to wait and listen to him. SpongeBob finally explains to her that he can no longer play the dangerous games she wants to play and begs for her to remain his friend. However, he realizes that Sandy has already fallen sound asleep, and the relieved and exhausted SpongeBob falls asleep as well. Patrick, eating ice cream and carrying a grocery bag, returns home to find the townspeople staring out from under his rock and yells, "Who are you people?!"
‣Real Western Steel - Bobby Black [Opening] ‣Harry's Back - Hans Ehrlinger ["I am 100% ma-male."] ‣Real Western Steel - Bobby Black ["Enough chitter-chatter, SpongeBob!"] •Pre-Hibernation - Pantera [Sand Mountain] ‣Rococo Rondo - Tedeusz Rozycki ["Uh... I can explain."] •Pre-Hibernation - Pantera ["I'm hotter than a hickory-smoked sausage!"/"Life's as extreme as you want to make it!"] ‣Hawaiian Link (b) - Richard Myhill [Later...] •Solo Steel 3 - Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob dragging himself home] •Pre-Hibernation - Pantera [SpongeBob launched out of bed/Extreme Jacks/Sandy and SpongeBob at the Sea Needle] ‣Holiday Playtime - Cedric King-Palmer [Bike ride] •Pre-Hibernation - Pantera [Industrial Park] •Vibe Q Sting - Nicolas Carr ["Wait a minute, I gotta talk my way out of this."] •Pre-Hibernation - Pantera [Hay in the needle stack/SpongeBob hides of Sandy in Patrick's rock] ‣Danger Zone - Mike Sunderland ["SpongeBob's tie!"] ‣Gruesome - The Surfdusters [The search party] ‣Death Trap - Gregor F. Narholz [Sandy looking for SpongeBob] ‣Rococo Rondo - Tedeusz Rozycki ["Uh, I can explain."] ‣Death Trap - Gregor F. Narholz [Sandy continues looking for SpongeBob.] •Idea Sting - Nicolas Carr ["SpongeBob?"] ‣Real Western Steel - Bobby Black [Sandy hugs SpongeBob] •Pre-Hibernation - Pantera ["Sandy, wait!"] ‣Stack of Leis - Kapono Beamer ["I just can't take the games!"] ‣Reflections of Honolulu - Daniel J. White [Sandy is asleep]
"Prehibernation Week" was ranked #28 during the Best Day Ever event from November 9–10, 2006.
Trivia
General
This episode was originally titled "Sardines."
Lines from this episode spawned a ton of memes on the Internet, including:
The man saying, "Uh, I can explain."
Patrick saying, "Who are you people?!"
Frank saying, "This is a load of barnacles."
This is the second episode to have an animated title card. The first is "SB-129."
The scene where SpongeBob and Sandy play "hay in the needle stack" is used as the title card for "Bubble Troubles."
In Hebrew, the episode is titled "מחפשים את ספוגבוב," which means "Looking for SpongeBob."
This the second episode to have a comedy drummer gag. The first is "Culture Shock."
This is the second episode where SpongeBob says "This squirrel's trying to kill me." The first is "MuscleBob BuffPants."
Sandy mentions the episodes main title when she says, "I gotta say, I'm impressed with you, SpongeBob. You're making this the best Prehibernation Week ever."
During The Complete 2nd Season Audio Commentary for this episode[2], C.H. Greenblatt says when SpongeBob gets on the bike, he looks right when the music starts to play. He is supposed to actually look after it starts playing, as a visual cue. This was an animation error.
In the audio commentary for this episode[2], one of the people in the commentary make fun of the Industrial Park by calling it "post-apocalyptic Bikini Bottom." Ironically, 10 years after this commentary was recorded, Bikini Bottom actually did become post-apocalyptic in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.
It is revealed in the audio commentary for this episode[2] that Aaron Springer performed the real-life drummer. The same commentary also revealed that it took a whole morning to set up the real-life drummer scene.
This was Edgar Larrazábal's last episode as an animation director.
The song "Prehibernation" performed by Pantera is part of a solo featured in the song "Death Rattle" by the same band; it starts at 2:31 and ends at about 2:43.
Before Patrick screams "Who are you people?!," his mouth is colored red.
A person glaring beside SpongeBob in Patrick's rock has tiny black oval eyes but Squidward pops out.
The person with tiny black oval eyes is not Squidward and Squidward himself is most likely hiding behind the other Bikini Bottomites and only goes in front and pops out to get Sandy's attention.
Even through this episode features Pantera, it does not feature Pantera's drummer, Vinnie Paul; instead the drums in this episode are played by Paul Tibbitt.
During the search party scene where the Bikini Bottomites are searching for SpongeBob, one fish is heard whistling and saying "Here boy!" as if he was calling a dog/worm.
When one of the needles stabs SpongeBob's nose, his voice sounds like Squidward's.
The SpongeBob sketch on the poster is the one on the show's logo in the theme song.
Cultural references
The game "Find the hay in the needle stack" is a switch on "find the needle in the hay stack."
Two kids building a sandman and singing a song in hopes of him coming to life is a reference to the song "Frosty the Snowman."
SpongeBob says all the extreme sports are "tearing [him] apart!," a famous quote said by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.
Errors
When Sandy goes over to paint her fence, the green bikini she wears underneath her skirt is gone.
Even though Sandy paints entirely over SpongeBob's water helmet with white paint, his eyes are still visible.
Throughout the entire episode, Sandy's acorn is black rather than its usual color.
Black acorn
There were two Nats once. One goes into the three-eyed sea elephant and another is standing near Sandy.
When Sandy busts into the Krusty Krab, she points to Frank, the muscular fish, saying that he and whoever is on his side is on Alpha team go look for SpongeBob. However, Frank screams "Gold team rules!"
When Sandy and SpongeBob are playing extreme jacks, Sandy blows the whistle with her helmet on.
