Reef Blower

If you were looking for the article about the machine, then see Reef blower (machine).

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Characters

• SpongeBob SquarePants
• Squidward Tentacles
• Incidental 3 ^{(debut; cameo)}
• Fred ^{(debut; cameo)}

Synopsis

One sunny day, Squidward walks outside, and looks upon his immaculate front lawn, free of debris, except for one tiny pink shell. Finding its presence unsightly, he nonchalantly kicks it onto SpongeBob's lawn. The latter pops out of his window and sees the shell. Also keen to keep the appearance of his lawn pristine, he gets his reef blower out of his garage and turns it on. The noise annoys Squidward, who plugs his ears as SpongeBob struggles to blow the shell away.

After a few failed attempts, SpongeBob applies more force and accidentally blows a large pile of sand onto Squidward and his lunch. To fix this problem, he blows the sand off Squidward first, then his plate of kelp, but gets some sand in the latter's eyes. After clearing Squidward's face, SpongeBob peers over at his sidewalk and the pile of sand is now atop it.

File:Reef Blower 26.jpg

"You!"

More determined to clean his yard than ever, SpongeBob sucks the pile of sand into the reef blower. The yard is cleared, but the blower malfunctions and spits out the sand along with a few mechanical parts. Undeterred, SpongeBob unzips the reef blower and puts the debris in himself. Upon trying to restart the machine, however, it fails to operate.

SpongeBob takes the starter rope and pulls it as far as it can possibly go. Once stretched to its limit, SpongeBob lets it yank him back and the motor restarts. The resulting suction proves so great that it vacuums up all the water in the ocean, leaving Squidward to start suffocating. The engorged reef blower soon bursts, releasing all the water and a large amount of sand.

The shell lands on Squidward's nose.

With his yard miraculously clean, SpongeBob heads back inside, leaving Squidward to his fate: his yard covered in sand piles, buried under one himself, and the tiny shell falling gently onto his nose.

Production

Storyboards

Art

Music

( ‣ ) Production music

( • ) Original music

( ◦ ) SpongeBob music

 ‣ Heat - The Blue Hawaiians [First half]
 ‣ War Blowers - The Blue Hawaiians [Second half]

Release

• "Reef Blower" aired as part of SpongeBob SquarePants' pilot episode after the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards on May 1, 1999. Unlike a majority of the episodes, this segment is paired with "Help Wanted" as there are no commercials in between. The title card for this episode pops up as soon as "Help Wanted" finishes.
  • This later happens with other three-episode groups.
• The episode is available on The Complete 1st Season, First 100 Episodes, Complete First Season, The Pilot a Mini-Movie and the Square Shorts, SpongeBob SquarePants, iSponge Offer Pack, From the Beginning, Pt.1, SpongeBob SquarePants Vol. 1, The Tom Kenny Collection, The 1st Season: Volume 1, The First & Second Seasons, Movies & TV Collection, The Best 200 Episodes Ever, and Tea at the Treedome DVDs.

Reception

• "Reef Blower" was ranked #24 during the Best Day Ever event from November 9–10, 2006.

Trivia

General

• Squidward is purple above water in this episode, despite being his normal color above water in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.
• This is the shortest episode to date, with a length of two minutes and fifty seconds.
  • The reasoning for its shortened length was to fill an 11-minute segment, since "Help Wanted" runs for eight minutes, and when followed by "Tea at the Treedome," a standard 11-minute episode, this equals a full 22 minutes.
• This is the first episode where the title card does not have music
• This is the first episode that does not feature any opening credits after the title card.
• This is the first episode to show SpongeBob and Squidward being neighbors; even though their houses are shown together in "Help Wanted," it is never stated in that episode that they live next to each other.
• This is the first episode to show what the backside of SpongeBob's house looks like.
• This episode marks the first appearance of SpongeBob's garage.
• This is the first episode of the series produced in 1999, while the previous episode, "Help Wanted," was produced two years prior as a pilot for the series in 1997.
• This is the first episode that Tom Yasumi worked on.
• This is the first time where Patrick, Mr. Krabs, and Gary are absent.
• This episode marks SpongeBob's first non-speaking appearance. He does not have any lines in "Whale Watching," but laughs in the said episode.
  • As such, this is the only episode to date where Tom Kenny does not play a voice role.
• This is the only episode that does not feature any spoken dialogue.
  • However, SpongeBob says "You!," with a subtitle appearing at the bottom of the screen, but there is still no audio.
    • As so, this episode has no dialogue because the studio's recording equipment broke.

      

      You!

• This is the only episode in season 1 not to have any bubble transitions.
• According to the Complete 1st Season Disc 1 and the First 100 Episodes Disc 1 descriptions of this episode, the reef blower in this episode is new.
• This was the first episode to play "War Blowers."
• This episode does not use music from APM Music.
  • This episode only contains two music tracks, the least of any episode in the series.
• This is the first episode where no female characters appear.
• Despite being the second segment of the series, this is the first episode on The Complete First Season box set, due to "Help Wanted" having copyright issues with the Tiny Tim song "Living in the Sunlight, Loving in the Moonlight."

Cultural references

• A reef blower is a parody of a leaf blower.

Errors

• When Squidward is in his yard eating, the flower in the pot from the beginning disappears.
• Briefly, when SpongeBob is placing the sand in the reef blower, his hands are big. They go back to normal when he has done so.
• When SpongeBob runs past Conch Street to get his reef blower started, Squidward is gone.
• Squidward is shown sitting on a doorstep before SpongeBob drains the ocean, but Squidward's house never had one before that moment.
• When the sand is piled in SpongeBob's walkway, the window on the first floor of his house is gone again.
• When SpongeBob's reef blower explodes, sand is shown in his yard. However, in the next scene, his house is sparkling clean.

Running Gags

• SpongeBob blowing something into Squidward's yard.