Tell me the definition of Shiny.
167a - The Krabby Patty That Ate Bikini Bottom[]
Premiered on November 25, 2011.
Written by Aaron Springer and Dani Michaeli.
Highlight: The concept.
A Krabby Patty grows too large after Mr. Krabs adds Sandy's scientific ingredients to it.
This episode has a great concept but it's mostly boring, just like most of S8.
So, the idea of this episode is pretty cool, as it is a parody of the cult horror movie The Blob, being about a giant Krabby Patty that eats the entire town. However, the episode doesn't execute the concept pretty well., but first, we got the set-up, which I really enjoy. It starts with Mr. Krabs going to Sandy's treedome as he notices a giant bean in there, and decides to ask Sandy for that growth serum to grow a Krabby Patty and therefore be able to feed more people and win more money. This is a clever way to portray Mr. Krabs as the greedy businessman who tries to buy stuff from a scientist, Sandy, for making more money. That's a nice representation of your usual horror movie cliché, but even with this, it feels like the set-up is kind of long. It goes on for three minutes when it could've been way shorter, specially because the episode would've had more time afterwards to exploit its concept, which doesn't really do anyways to be honest. The first minute could've been done a lot faster than it was.
Anyways, for the concept itself, the Krabby Patty starts to grow more and more once they are at the Krusty Krab, until it is too big for them to handle. This is nice, as it doesn't show the Krabby Patty as a threat out of nowhere, but rather it shows you how it progressively keeps becoming more dangerous as time passes, although maybe it goes a bit too fast, but still, I guess I am satisfied. I'm not satisfied tho, with the second half of the episode, because it's some kind of Whelk Attack 2.0, where all that happens is that they run away from the giant Krabby Patty, and the few jokes they try to tell to make this more entertaining don't work either. You got the Krabby Patty stopping at the traffic lights, which is a joke that we've already seen in Wormy, or the cop giving a ticket to a car which is immediatelly swallowed, which was also in Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm. Therefore, this borefest of a sequence doesn't get saved with the few jokes it has because they are jokes that we've already seen in other episodes.
In the end, the conflict gets solved by SB absorbing all the Krabby Patty, which is also pretty much the same resolution than Whelk Attack, so it doesn't get creative with that either. This episode's second half is extremely boring, and the first half is just the set-up! Yeah! That's really impressive. The concept is pretty creative and I like some of the plot devices in the set-up, but I can't like this episode.
Rating: Bad
167b - Bubble Buddy Returns[]
Premiered on November 25, 2011.
Written by Luke Brookshier, Marc Ceccarelli and Mr. Lawrence.
Highlight: The pillow factory.
SpongeBob attempts to keep Bubble Buddy's son out of danger.
We all remember how great Bubble Buddy was in pre-movie right? Well, how 'bout a sequel? Yeah, of course.
First of all, we have to analyze the title of this episode. A character returning is something nice when you don't spoil it, because the episode treats SB reading the letter as a huge revelation about Bubble Buddy coming back, but no, because it says it on the title of the episode. This is not the biggest complaint about the title also. The main complaint is the fact that the title uses the fact of Bubble Buddy returning as the title, which makes you assume it is a main part of the plot, but it isn't, because he only appears at the beginning and ending. I know this is a point everyone makes, but it's true. Even if the episode didn't have this title, it wouldn't have been a surprise either because during this beginning, you can see at the beginning that the letter in the bubble says ""Bubble Buddy", so you already know he's gonna appear in the episode. Also, about this beginning, why the frick is the entire first minute of the episode just a bubble going across Bikini Bottom? Literally, it's just that. It's very obvious filler and it doesn't serve any purpose in the episode.
Once Shiny has been introduced into the episode, prepare for repetition, because literally all the structure of the episode is based on Shiny, who conveniently the episode doesn't let you know if he's conscious and therefore he's putting himself in danger on purpose, putting himself in danger and SpongeBob having to save him, except for the Krusty Krab scene, which is the same but with Shiny causing mayhem instead of putting himself in danger. For the first scene in Squidward's house, it is more tolerable than in the rest of the episode, because at least there's some nice jokes like all of Squidward's shelves having pointy objects no one would ever have but for some reason he does, or also that part when Shiny paints a mustache into a Squidward painting, which also later gets screwed up and leaves the brain behind, which I found considerably creative.
The scene at the KK is considerably decent, because it's mostly just slapstick although it really gets repetitive after having seen the scene at Squidward's house just a minute ago. There's also a nice callback to the original Bubble Buddy when Krabs says that that guy still owes him money, but the worst part comes after it. Shiny goes to the town to put himself in danger and SB has to save him while getting hurt in the process. The same as in Squidward's house, only that this time he got hurt. Prepare, because that's exactly what the episode keeps doing until it thinks there's enough filler. Shiny enters into a pin factory, and SB gets hurt saving him. Shiny enters into a scissors factory, and SB gets hurt saving him. Shiny enters into a- like damn, can you at least have some variation? It reminds me of SBYF when SB gets fired four times in a row for the same mistake, and here, there is a joke that is repeated four times, with three of those times having the same structure. It only changes with the pillow factory, because at least it's clever that it is an incredibly dangerous place when it sounds like the opposite.
Damn boring episode without structure and extremely repetitive. S8 is going damn well so far.
Rating: Bad
168a - Restraining SpongeBob[]
Premiered on April 2, 2012.
Written by Paul Tibbitt, Vincent Waller and Sean Charmatz.
Highlight: Patrick.
A fed-up Squidward resorts a legal action to keep SpongeBob away.
Ight this episode is actually funny, but it's a Squid Torture, so it's nothing surprising. Squid Tortures are always funny except if you are Giant Squidward or Smoothe Jazz. In this case, it is about Squidward making use of a restraining order to keep SB away. This is already a pretty clever concept, considering Squidward can't stand SB, so it makes sense that after having to deal with him for 168 episodes, he decides to recur to a restraining order, but let's start with the beginning.
The episode starts with Squidward going to work and a pretty funny joke coming from it, consisting on SB asking him if he can walk to work with him several times until Squidward finally snaps, only to realize they are already at the KK. The episode is trying to show the viewer how annoying SB is without being too annoying for the viewer, which is something a certain episode called Enchanted Tiki Dreams should learn from. The scene at the KK is also funny. It has a fart joke that works when SB is trying to get mustard out of an empty dispenser, which makes a sound that makes the customer think that Squidward is farting. This is a more effective fart joke than the ones in PC and it also doesn't fricking get repeated for the entire episode. Anyways, we also get a pretty cool slapstick sequence of which 9/17 got one of his old pfps from before we get to the main plot.
Once Squidward has taken legal actions against SpongeBob, the restraining order is explained in a really comedical way, with three lawyers with completely over-the-top personalities that act as if they were Power Rangers and talk in a really loud tone of voice. They remind me of the Team Rocket from Pokemon because they act as if everything they say was a choreography. They even have cool over-the-top names that refer to their hair, like the Power Rangers, who were named after the colors of their suits. They even go out flying in an over-the-top style for some reason. Anyways, the episode is basically an extension of a joke made in MKTaV and turned into an 11-minute episode, the joke being that one when Squidward is glad that SB is going away, just to realize that Patrick is still there, and this is what the second half of the episode mostly revolves around Patrick annoying Squidward, and it is pretty funny to see. First because the concept itself is already hilarious, as Squidward thought he got rid of all his problems in life, just for his second major problem to appear and haunt him, and secondly, because Patrick acts as a stalker who follows Squidward everywhere, even to the toilet, and in a scene, you can literally see how he keeps going exactly the same way Squidward is going. Patrick's personality here is very similar to SB's personality in Boating Buddies in that regard. I also find really funny that scene where Squidward goes flying after Patrick bites his nose, and he hits a pie that a random dude brought to his grandma who isn't even at the KK. I love how the probabilities of that ever happening, specially when there's no grandma's in the KK are astronomically low, but Squidward still has to suffer it. It's just one of those episodes where the Universe is out for Squidward.
Pretty fun episode, which is something to appreciate considering the season we are at.
Rating: Good
168b - Fiasco![]
Premiered on April 5, 2012.
Written by Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas and Mr. Lawrence.
Highlight: Squidward getting imprisoned.
Plankton mistakenly swipes a piece of art instead of a Krabby Patty.
The last time we had an episode about art it was pretty fricking amazing. It's not the case with this one.
Ight, so the episode starts with one of the most obvious examples of filler we've seen yet. It starts with a commercial that is revealed after a whole minute that it was just a storyboard made by SB, so it basically serves no purpose because it isn't even related to the plot of the episode anyways. Also, the commercial itself is not really that exciting because we've already seen that on ASoTV, and it's also a well-produced version of the commercial in that episode, so it loses the comedic aspect it had. But that's not the worst thing because then, there's another minute of filler with SB asking Squidward for something to help Mr. Krabs bring customers, which is completely pointless because that could've been completely cut and just start the episode with Fiasco coming to the Krusty Krab and making his work of art and we still wouldn't have missed anything important.
Now, the last episode about art was genius because it had some great parody of art, but here, it doesn't really because all they use Fiasco for is to make that piece of art and right after, he disappears from the episode, so he doesn't really serve any purpose. His art does. Once the art has been introduced, Plankton is thrown into the episode for no real reason, which is really bland. It feels like they didn't know where to go with the plot now so they just decided to throw Plankton into the mix because Plankton episodes are easy to write. Anyways, Plankton predictably steals the art, and here is when the cops start chasing him, which is pretty stupid in my opinion considering the piece of art was declared a national treasure and therefore, it doesn't belong to the KK, which is stupid because I mean, Fiasco throwed it away, so I guess everyone who gets it should get it for himself, so the KK should have it. Also, if it belong to everyone, then why is it at the KK? Shouldn't it be in a museum? Anyways, after Plankton gets it, we get a minute and a half that is literally just Plankton running away from the cops. Yeah. That's right. Really entertaining, but the worse thing is that before you know the episode is over, because after this, the only things left are some conversation Plankton has with SB and a gag where they arrest Squidward which I admittedly found pretty funny. I mean, they had to arrest Squidward until things were clear, but it looks like they forgot to release him after that.
Yeah, this is Fiasco!, an episode that feels really lazy and uninspired, has a boring structure and filler. I prefer The Googly Artiste, thank you.
Rating: Bad