Cmc was here.
32a - Pressure
Premiered on May 12, 2001.
Written by Jay Lender, William Reiss and David B. Fain.
Highlight: "Sandy's a girl?"
SpongeBob and Sandy compete to see who's better.
Well, let's see if this episode is good or not. Well yeah, it is good, so I'm safe from any possible hitman sent by Cmc to shoot me. Now, with that said, let's review it.
Let's see, I'm not a fan of the first three minutes of the episode honestly, because they are kind of repetitive and lacking of a clear direction. In these first three minutes, Sandy wins SB in a race, which is not really funny or interesting, it just happens, so they repeat exactly the same thing but with the roles reversed. I mean, I know that's supposed to be funny but it isn't in my opinion, because even if you ignore that they repeat the same scene twice, it's not really even entertaining the first time because it's just something that happens but it has nothing going for it. It's just watching how them compete.
Once we pass the three minute mark the episode gets quite good for me, because we get a four minute scene of just dialogue. Dialogue? Isn't that a bad thing? Well, it would be, but it turns out this scene is pretty entertaining to watch and it's also kind of fun. There's a lot of cool jokes like SB trying to hi-five with Squidward, or the one mentioned in the highlight, and the things they do to prove their superiority are also fun to watch, like, it's so stupid Krabs feels superior because he can do that weird eye thing, or how Sandy tries to prove superior to the rest by pretending she doesn't need air, even though she obviously does.
Finally, we get the scene where they go to the surface, and it is great IMO, with a great joke of Patrick saying "Hey, we're not chickens!", even though the best thing about it is obviously how they portray them over the water in a cheesy low-budget way, using puppets, which makes it pretty fun to see.
In conclusion, not an amazing episode as Cmc makes it out to be in my opinion, as it takes way too long to start and it isn't even that funny or has that great of a plot, but it's definitely a good, enjoyable and recommendable one.
Rating: Good
32b - The Smoking Peanut
Premiered on May 12, 2001.
Written by Paul Tibbitt, Walt Dohrn and Mr. Lawrence.
Highlight: "I'm so close I can almost taste it".
SpongeBob throws a peanut at a clam.
This episode would've been meh otherwise, but it honestly has very good comedy and plot, so I guess it gets saved from that rating.
This episode takes two minutes and a half to even finish introducing the concept, which is too long of a time. However, when it gets introduced, the episode doesn't start yet either, because there's the part SB is watching the news to see how what he did is suddenly a national disgrace. Fortunately, after the fourth and a half minute, it gets better, because SB starts trying to find out if the people know who did it, while getting constantly paranoid, and that sounds like an entertaining plot, and it is.
First he has a conversation about it with Squidward, and right after, we find Patrick being a detective, one of the strongest points of the episode, because he's able to create good comedy out of making SB nervous and that works both this first time with the grain of sand thing or the second time, specially the second time, with the "I'm so close I can almost taste it" joke and the SB popsicle.
Also, the twists are pretty funny, and a cool parody of the usual twists from crime movies, like Patrick going like "I was the last person I would've suspected of, but I was looking for me all the time" and Mr. Krabs being the criminal are pretty fun, specially the "behold" gag, which for some reason was kind of reused from Neptune's Spatula, but it was still pretty fun, and even funnier than the first time if you ask me.
So overall, not an amazing episode because it kind of takes way too long to start, but it has pretty good comedy and an amazing plot, one of the best of the season in fact.
Rating: Good