I'm already five episodes in, and I still don't know how to do a proper introduction, so let's go with this.
5a - Pizza Delivery[]
Premiered on August 14, 1999.
Written by Sherm Cohen, Aaron Springer and Peter Burns.
Highlight: Squidward avenging SpongeBob.
SpongeBob and Squidward deliver a pizza.
Well, this episode's rewatch was anticlimactic, because it made me realize that this one is terribly overrated. Yes, I said Pizza Delivery is overrated, and the main reason for that is the plot. Remember how Bubblestand had no plot? Well, Pizza Delivery appears to have one, but then, the episode relies on random scenes to fill in the eleven minutes, and those scenes do not add to the non-existant plot, neither are funny. First, they start walking and SpongeBob decides to listen to the ground for a truck to come. Then, the truck doesn't stop, so Squidward gets SpongeBob out of the way and they cut to the next scene. Why was that scene even there? It didn't add anything to the plot whatsoever. Was it supposed to be funny? Well, I can say it wasn't, and neither is the next scene, where a tornado tries to absorb them, but SpongeBob doesn't let go of the pizza. That's it. The whole episode revolves around random scenes that don't add anything to the plot whatsoever, nor are funny, and the episode's structure is just a mess. I would even say this episode is far worse than Bubblestand, and not only as far as structure is concerned, but also as a whole. The Krusty Krab Pizza goes on for too long, and the scene with Squidward wanting to eat the pizza is completely unnecessary. The whole episode looks like they somehow tried to fill in 11 minutes in whatever way they could think of, until they got to 10 minutes and they could add the scene of Squidward avenging SpongeBob, which is by far the best part of the episode, and a heartwarming ending to a mess of an episode.
Rating: Bad
5b - Home Sweet Pineapple[]
Premired on August 14, 1999.
Written by Ennio Torresan, Jr., Erik Wiese and Mr. Lawrence.
Highlight: South Pacific Island II.
SpongeBob's house is destroyed by nematodes.
So, this one is an episode that relies both on comedy and drama, and I must say it does succeed on both, but let's go with the comedy first: this episode has pretty good comedy, which may be funny to you or not, but it is objectively well-constructed. This episode has no dragged out jokes or problems with the pacing at all, from the visual gags of the construction montage, which make very clever use of the cartoon logic Looney Tunes style, to Patrick and the spiders, to the scene at Squidward's house. The episode at no moment feels boring or repetitive, and every comedical situation in the episode works properly.
About the drama, well, the episode does not rely that heavily on drama, as it's only present in the end, but I thought it was very charming and heartwarming to see, and the track used on that scene (South Pacific Island II) is very fitting and it's probably one of the best tracks ever played on SpongeBob.
There's not much else to say because this episode does not really need a long review as it is just a good episode with no major problems, and I wouldn't call it amazing either, but it is just a solid episode that I would recommend, and that shows that the trio of writers of this episode is being a quite good one on this season.
Rating: Good