SpongeBob and Patrick receive new reef blowers in the mail and begin blowing and sucking things up with them. Eventually, they suck up Squidward's windows and door, trapping Squidward inside. Squidward tunnels his way out and demands they put his door and windows back. In SpongeBob and Patrick's attempt to do so, the reef blowers shoot them out with such force that Squidward's house is completely destroyed. As the debris falls, Squidward tells them that this is the final straw and that he refuses to live next to them anymore. Just then, his TV lands amidst the rubble and turns on, playing a commercial for Tentacle Acres, a private community created exclusively for folks as desperate to move as he is. But before he can actually hear the name of the place, Patrick changes the channel and says "I hate this channel."
Squidward arrives at the front gate, and after an interview over the intercom where he confirms that he is neither a sponge nor a starfish, he is allowed to enter. To his delight, he finds that the residents all look, sound and act similar to him, even living in houses identical to his prior home. Before Squidward can go to sleep, eager to start his new life, SpongeBob and Patrick call in an attempt to get him to come back. Squidward refuses, saying that there is no possible way he is passing up the chance of being among his own kind.
"Now these neighbors know how to live!"
Squidward begins his first day at Tentacle Acres by going biking and finds that all the other residents are riding their bikes as well. He then goes grocery shopping, and is impressed by the local food market, which even carries canned bread. He then sees an Interpretive Dance Academy, where he joins the group in synchronized interpretive dance. At the end of the day, he sees a clarinet-playing trio performing in the park, which he makes a quartet. Squidward's second day at Tentacle Acres is just like the first, a fact he enjoys immensely. However, as the days go by, each one exactly the same as the last, Squidward slowly loses enthusiasm for the endless routine. Finally, Squidward realizes that nobody in Tentacle Acres stands out and that his dream life isn't everything he had hoped it to be, and so leaves in the middle of the song.
While sitting on a park bench, lamenting his attainment of "too much paradise," Squidward hears a reef blower. For a split second he thinks it's SpongeBob, but then sees that it's only a park worker. The worker leaves the reef blower unattended and Squidward is slowly tempted to start playing with it, irritating and scaring his neighbors out of their wits in the process. They eventually become fed up with his behavior and form an angry mob to chase him down.
Meanwhile, SpongeBob and Patrick come to Tentacle Acres to apologize to Squidward and try to convince him to return home. The surveillance guards tell them that their kind isn't welcome and refuse to open the gate for them. However, Patrick's bad breath travels through the intercom into the security room, knocking the guards out and causing them to fall over onto the button that opens the gate. They enter the village and come across the angry mob cornering Squidward, but are unable to identify Squidward among the crowd of near-identical residents.
"Are you Squidward?"
The mob presents to Squidward a "well thought-out and organized list of complaints," demanding him to leave, and Squidward wholeheartedly agrees. As SpongeBob and Patrick continue their search, Squidward uses the reef blower to launch himself out of the village yelling "Freedom!". SpongeBob concludes, "Well, we know one thing: it sure isn't that guy!"
Production
Music
( ‣ ) Production music
( • ) Original music
( ◦ ) SpongeBob music
‣Happy-Go-Lively - Laurie Johnson [Title card] ‣War Blowers - The Blue Hawaiians [playing with reef blowers] ‣Hawaiian Cocktail - Richard Myhill [Squidward says he's moving away] ‣More Details - Gerhard Trede [Tentacle Acres commercial/Commercial again] •Steel Licks 6 - Jeremy Wakefield [Squidward at the gate] ‣Life of Luxury - Kurt Schick [gate opens] ‣Kleine Nachtmusik-Allegro, Eine - Paul Gaechter, Wolfgang Mozart [marzipan truck] ‣Life of Luxury - Kurt Schick ["Heaven at last."] ‣Comic Walk - Sidney Torch [Squidward bumps into someone] ‣Harp Ding - Nicolas Carr ["This place is better than I expected!"] ‣Life of Luxury - Kurt Schick [Squidward goes to his new house.] ‣Comic Walk - Sidney Torch [SpongeBob on the phone] ‣Hawaiian Link (b) - Richard Myhill [the next morning] ‣Life of Luxury - Kurt Schick [Squidward riding his bike] ‣Happy-Go-Lively - Laurie Johnson [food shopping] ‣Harp Ding - Nicolas Carr ["Canned bread!"] ‣Happy-Go-Lively - Laurie Johnson [Interpretative dance.] ‣ ? - Brad Carow [clarinet trio] ‣Happy-Go-Lively - Laurie Johnson [Squidward going through the same routine every day] ‣ ? - Brad Carow [clarinet trio] ‣Hawaiian Cocktail - Richard Myhill [Squidward in the park] ‣Vibe Sting - Nicolas Carr ["SpongeBob?"] ‣SpongeBob Closing Theme - Steve Belfer, Nicolas Carr [Squidward playing with a reef blower] ‣War Blowers - The Blue Hawaiians ["Tag, you're it!"] •Steel Sting - Jeremy Wakefield [apology cake] ‣Dramatic Cue (a) - Ronald Hanmer ["Fried oyster skins?!"] ‣Sponge Monger - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [angry mob chasing Squidward] ‣Comic Walk - Sidney Torch [list of complaints] ‣Puka A - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [ending]
In this episode, the distance between SpongeBob's, Squidward's, and Patrick's houses are further apart than usual.
Patrick's line "I hate this channel" has become a popular meme on YouTube. The videos usually say "Patrick hates (insert name here)" where they show other scenes on the TV.
Based on the montage of Squidward's monotonous day-to-day activities, he spent a total of 4 weeks at Tentacle Acres.
All of the octopuses are the same in many ways. They all have a nasal laugh and play the clarinet. However, in "Cephalopod Lodge" and "Smoothe Jazz at Bikini Bottom," they are many different shapes, colors, and sizes.
SpongeBob previously had a reef blower in "Reef Blower," suggesting he brought a new one after the previous one was destroyed.
When Squidward is at the Interpretive Dance Academy, one can see an octopus there who looks like Squilliam Fancyson since he has a unibrow. However, Squilliam did not officially make his debut until the episode "Band Geeks."
Squidward mentions Tentacle Acres in the video-game SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis. He refers to the place as Squidville instead of Tentacle Acres.
Tentacle Acres appears as a location in the PC version of Lights, Camera, Pants!In order to help Squidward get his energy back so he can go home, SpongeBob has to get him a cup of hot cocoa, as Squidward is too lazy to get it himself.
When Squidward goes into the dance academy, two octopuses resemble him without the headband.
Squidward's daily activities in Tentacle Acres:
Bicycling
Buying canned bread
Dancing
Playing clarinet, with other octopuses
"Stay back, I've got garden tools!" has become a popular line that Squidward has said.
Irony: When Squidward plays with the reef blower, the people repeat his exact responses to SpongeBob and Patrick when they played with reef blowers.
This episode is the only episode so far in the series to feature the location Tentacle Acres.
In Survival of the Idiots, a later Season 2 episode, when Sandy says, "You're gonna be wearing an iron lung when i'm through with you Pinhead!" is similar to that of the two squids asking Squidward, "Can you pipe down over there, iron lung?".
In the same episode, Sandy also tells SpongeBob & Patrick, "I warned ya, Dirty Dan! Now, you've just crossed the border into Hurtville!". This could possibly be a reference to this episode's title.
Rough Draft Korea?
After Squidward says, "Yeah! It's even better in a group!" and before he says, "This town is perfect," a bubble transition is shown. For a brief second, "Rough Draft Korea" appears at the bottom of the screen. This error was made by Korea's Animation crew, where they color the episode. Also, it mentions a date ("DATE: 06 / 30 / 00"; June 30, 2000), which is the possible date of making this episode.
This happen in some episodes from the early seasons:
In the Croatian dub, in the scene where SpongeBob and Patrick are talking nonsense, those "nonsense" are actually accelerated voices of SpongeBob's and Patrick's voice actors, Ronald Žlabur and Luka Peroš.
They are actually saying: SpongeBob: "Joj Markec naš kak mi fališ Markec daj se vrati doma... (Oh Squidward you really miss, you don't know how I miss you, come home)" [Squidward talking]... "Joj Markec daj dođi doma, daj lepo te molim... (Oh Squidward come home pretty please)" [Squidward hangs up the phone] Patrick: "Onda Spužva Bob jesi li mu rekao da se vrati? (So SpongeBob did you tell him to come home?)" SpongeBob: "Pa rekel sam mu, pa rekel sam mu, al kad neće slušat. (I told him, I told him, but he's not listening)"
Cultural references
The doorman asks "Are you now or have you ever been a sponge?," in a parody of a common question asked by notorious senator Joseph McCarthy, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"
Canned Bread is a real-life product in Japan called "Pan Desuyo!" ("This is a bread!") and can also be found in select stores in the United States, among other countries.[2]
Fried oyster skins are the underwater version of "fried onion skins," since they both cause bad breath and they both seem to be marginally edible food.
The scene where SpongeBob and Patrick are speaking gibberish while speaking to Squidward on the phone is a reference to how many cartoon characters sound like they're speaking gibberish on the phone. Ironically, some characters on SpongeBob even do this at times.
In the DVD releases it is listed as "Squidsville".
From a certain angle, there are no numbers on the doors of Squidward's neighbors. From other angles, there are numbers on the doors.
On the first day at Tentacle Acres, when Squidward joins the clarinet trio and the camera zooms out, Squidward's shirt becomes white instead of orange.
As Squidward is leaving Full of Health, there are houses next to the store. They appear to be on the same street as well.
When Squidward enters Full of Health, there are houses that are far from the store, and on a different street. But when he leaves the store, the houses appear to be much closer and on the same street as Full of Health. Also, there are houses behind the houses that are on the street.
When Squidward is at the Interpretive Dance Academy, the person next to him with a unibrow has a leotard that changes from orange to yellow. Then during the montage it is orange.
SpongeBob and Patrick suck in four pieces of Squidward's house. When they shoot them back out, six pieces are shown flying through the air, including two “ears”.
Squidward's door is sucked to the side of his house. But when SpongeBob and Patrick are seen, they are nowhere near the side of his house.
When SpongeBob talks on the phone before Squidward says he isn't moving back, the lines for sound are coming out of the wrong end.
When the parts of Squidward's house hit his house, SpongeBob and Patrick's houses are missing.
When SpongeBob and Patrick suck the parts of Squidward's house into their reef blowers, they do not suck the house's "ears," but when they are about to return the parts, the ears are missing.
When Squidward and the mob pass by SpongeBob and Patrick, there are no numbers on the doors of the houses.
At Tentacle Acres, Squidward plays the clarinet with his mouth open, which is impossible.
When Squidward drags the reef blower along the ground, its strap is orange. When the scene cuts back to the park bench, the strap is black. When the scene cuts to a long shot after he falls off, it's orange again.
When Squidward is about to pass SpongeBob and Patrick, SpongeBob's front teeth disappear for a split second.
