Double review of a double trio, and one of them is the so-called cursed trio.
83a - Rise and Shine[]
Premiered on February 19, 2007.
Written by Nate Cash and Steven Banks.
Highlight: "I gotta put on my teeth and brush my pants".
Patrick's morning routine is revealed.
God, this episode is worse than I could possibly imagine. This episode is the definition of not trying. Let's see, this is a 4-minute episode, and the first short of S5, so you can't expect it to have an amazing plot, and it's usually a fast-paced plot because they obviously can't drag things too much. But this episode must be magical or something, because it manages to be dragged out while only being 4 minutes long, and it obviously doesn't worry about being fast-paced because it barely has a plot. Seriously, there's no plot direction or anything. The episode just doesn't know where he wants to go. And this is not like a bad paced S1 episode, no, this is much worse. This episode is terribly abysmal and there's just not enough words to describe how bad it is. It's what would happen if you tried to make an episode without writing anything and just randomnly deciding what to do as you make it. But that is too much for this episode because it sounds like some kind of Yoko Ono modern art crap, so even if modern art and Yoko Ono's art sucks, it's still too good for this episode.
Let's talk about the episode itself. It starts with SB waking up and saying to Gary "I wonder how Patrick's mornings are like?". Well, WHY DON'T YOU JUST ASK HIM, DON'T FORCE US TO SEE THIS CRAP. IN FACT, IMMA WRITE THE REST OF THIS IN CAPITAL LETTERS BECAUSE THIS EPISODE DESERVES IT. ALSO, WHY THE HELL IS THAT THERE? WHY DIDN'T IT START WITH PATRICK? I MEAN, NO, THEY NEEDED TO HAVE SB SAY "OH, LET'S SEE HOW PAT'S MORNINGS ARE LIKE" I KNOW, I'M SEEING THAT, YOU DON'T HAVE TO TELL ME. MAN, I BET THEY WERE ALSO THINKING OF PUTTING SOME FLASH LIGHTS AND A GIANT SIGN TELLING YOU THAT THIS IS AN EPISODE ABOUT PATRICK'S MORNING, INSTEAD OF JUST SHOWING IT TO YOU. BUT WAIT, IT WOULD BE BETTER IF YOU DIDN'T SHOW ME! BECAUSE THE EPISODE'S ABOUT PATRICK TRYING TO TURN OFF A FRICKING CLOCK, AND THE CLOCK IS CONSTANTLY SOUNDING BECAUSE HE CAN'T JUST REALIZE THAT THE LAMP ISN'T MAKING THAT SOUND! BUT DON'T WORRY! BECAUSE THAT'S ONLY HALF THE EPISODE! THE OTHER HALF IS ABOUT PATRICK TRYING TO OPEN A CAN. DAMN, WHAT AN INTERESTING STORY! TAKE THAT S4! THIS IS HOW YOU WRITE A GOOD STORY!
WHY DOES THIS EXIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIST!?!?!?!?!?
Rating: Bad
83b - Waiting[]
Premiered on February 19, 2007.
Written by Nate Cash, Tuck Tucker and Steven Banks.
Highlight: The cake and the fork.
SpongeBob waits for a toy to arrive in the mail.
Alright, after a really abysmal start to this widely considered cursed trio, we get an episode that is considered by many to be one of the worst of the series and a really funny episode by me.
This episode, much like its sister I've just reviewed, doesn't have a lot of plot. However, unlike it's sister, it knows where it's going, and unlike it's sister, well, it's actually funny. The main comedy factor would be that SpongeBob is such a drama queen, and I find his portrayal here hilarious. You could say it's OOC, but I honestly don't mind that because I find it really funny. The concept as a whole is funny in fact. I mean, it's about SB literally sticking to the mailbox as if his life depended on it, even though he could just go and wait for the mailman to arrive with his package. This makes almost everyone of his reaction to basically anything that happens so over-the-top and hilarious, specially when Patrick comes back from eating, because when Patrick just says hello, he basically acts the way he would if Patrick had just burned his house. BTW, this is when the most genius scene of this episode happens, with a really unpredictable and well-written joke, where Patrick tells SB that he missed his birthday party, and he brings him a cake and a gift. He decides to hold the cake with his teeth while he looks for the fork, but he eats the cake, leaving SB without a cake. This is not the real punchline of the joke, because now, SB asks him what is the gift, and ta-da! It was the fork. LOL, that is so unexpected that it has to make you laugh. It's an incredibly well-written joke.
Once SB gets the toy, another scene starts where he's holding the toy and Patrick apparently breaks it, which gives us a really fun reaction from SB, because instead of repeating what he's been doing for the entire episode, which would be being a whiny baby, he instead doesn't change his emotions, until he cracks and starts screaming at Patrick. It would've been very funny on its own, but it makes it funnier that it is a small twist from the attitude SB has been having through the rest of the episode, and it's even more hilarious that they were crying because of nothing because apparently, it was not broken, it's just what the toy does. LOL.
This episode's basically a short one that works perfectly with that runtime, because it'd probably have been dragged out otherwise, and the comical factor of it is basically watching SB cry about everything, which is really funny surprisingly, because his reactions are so over-the-top and it's not just like him crying for 7 minutes, so I think this episode is absolutely masterful.
Rating: Good
83c - Fungus Among Us[]
Premiered on September 29, 2007.
Written by Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas and Richard Pursel.
Highlight: Patrick and the bubble.
SpongeBob spreads an itchy fungus around Bikini Bottom.
Could anyone explain to me why the hell is the first shot of the episode reversed? I didn't alter it in any way. That's literally how it looks in the episode.
So, this episode was Richard Pursel's first as a writer, and to me it is a really lame start. It could've been worse, but this episode is really unentertaining and as a whole it's really lackluster and boring because it's completely plot-driven and it has almost no comedy, even if it has some redeeming qualities. I could excuse it if the plot was something amazing, but I mean, the plot is essentially a slower Once Bitten and far less interesting because it's not like a parody of a zombie invasion. It's just, well, people getting covered in fungus.
The fungus itself is a pretty cool idea, yes, but the episode should've been way more fast-paced, because it's really slow and it's mostly just people getting infected. The first half though, isn't terrible, because it's mostly just introducing the concept. The concept itself is fine. I like the fact that they decided to use this fungus thing and not go with some cliché zombie invasion crap, and the first half, even though nothing amazing happens on it, because the episode doesn't try too hard to be good, it's relatively harmless. It's basically SB dealing with the fungus, which is... okay, I guess? However, after that, the episode really becomes boring, because Squidward calls the SWAT, giving us a really dragged out scene of SB in his home and Patrick breaking the bubble. It's almost too minutes long and it's really fricking boring because it's very obvious filler. Still, I find funny when Patrick starts biting the bubble and stepping on it with spiked shoes. It's so over-the-top stupid I find it funny, but don't enjoy it too much, because then SB goes to the KK and the episode becomes four minutes of people being infected and complaining about it without it being funny like it was in the KK scene in Once Bitten. I really like the way the conflict is solved though. It makes sense and they acknowledge it in the episode, saying that Gary is a bottomfeeder. It also gets foreshadowed in the beginning, so I think it's a nice touch. Still, this episode sucks, even if it has some good qualities like the concept itself, the fungus and the ending.
Rating: Bad
84a - Spy Buddies[]
Premiered on July 23, 2007.
Written by Luke Brookshier, Tom King and Dani Michaeli.
Highlight: The disguises twist at the end.
Mr. Krabs hires SpongeBob and Patrick to spy on Plankton.
I really like this episode. It reminds me of the original Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy episode in S1, which is an instant classic, because, while MM&BB was a brilliant parody of superheroes and the comic book Golden Age, this episode is a brilliant parody of action and spy movies. It parodies almost every cliché ever seen on spy movies, and, unlike MM&BB, the parody is actually more focused on the elements of the spy movies themselves, because MM&BB mostly only parodied the heroes. This episode parodies everything, from the iconic shot of James Bond seen through a tunnel, to the different gadgets spies use in this movies, and all this makes the episode not only funny, but also very action-packed, and it's pretty cool to see two weenies like SB and Pat acting as spies. Two goofballs being spies sounds like the plot for a 90s comedy movie starring Will Smith and Marlon Wayans, and I can't say I see anything wrong with that.
This episode is essentially a compilation of funny scenes of SB and Pat trying to catch Plankton. All of them are funny. You got a very creative use of the different gadgets in several of these scenes, like the Krabby Patty exploding in Patrick's pants, or them having a car that Patrick decides to destroy by pressing the self-destroy button. These scenes being from the first half, which is okay. It's interesting and the part where they trying to identify what Plankton is doing is entertaining, but the second half is where it's at, because that's when the 90s comedy goofiness intensifies. I obviously love the laser in Patrick's butt, but that's not surprising considering I really like stupid humor, and scatological humor is one type of stupid humor. It obviously gets better when Patrick's butt becomes the S.S. Diarrhea and he starts to shoot lasers from his butt. This leads to a war scene between the KK and the Chum Bucket that is considerably intersting and funny when Krabs starts using the customers as cannonballs. Of course, though, the best part is the ending, because it's a genius parody of the stupid plot twist many spy movies feel forced to add at the end, which not only is shown with that Krabs and Plankton switching lives twist, but when Patrick and SB suddenly start taking of their disguises under disguises under disguises, like when in Scooby Doo the bad guy wore several masks. "Oh, Carl, but you find that hilarious, and Band Geeks also had a parody of bad writing and you called it meh", well yeah, but Band Geeks used that parody to move the plot forward as an excuse to write the episode poorly. This episode just does the twist for the sake of doing it an being stupid, and I find it really funny.
Pretty funny parody of spy movies and a marvelous S5 episode.
Rating: Good
84b - Boat Smarts[]
Premiered on July 23, 2007.
Written by Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas and Richard Pursel.
Highlight: "Looks like you forgot your boat smarts".
Mrs. Puff hosts a documentary about good and bad boaters, starring SpongeBob and Squidward.
Imagine calling this episode bad because KKTV ripoff.
This episode's concept is really good for a 4-minute short, because it is just based on repeating one gag structure while variating the joke, and I think that it is a pretty good idea for a short episode in order to avoid repetition. I also enjoy the training video idea, because even if it was already used in KKTV, this episode does it in a different way because it's more like a real training video where the humor is in the video itself, while KKTV was more of a training video that interacts directly with the characters and has some meta humor and dry humor to it. In conclusion, this episode is more like a training video you'd see in real life, except it has comedy, and I gotta say that, even if it is simple, the comedy works. It's just a compilation of differences between drivers with and without boat smarts, portrayed by Squidward and SpongeBob respectively, and I think it's really funny to see how Squidward constantly gets punished by destiny for doing things right. Some reviewers like PieGuy have made points like saying that "this episode is doing something wrong when it punishes a character for doing the right thing". Man, that's a very bad point. Really, many of the points that PieGuy makes to dislike some episodes make me angry. Seriously, PieGuy, why are you so irritating? And how does the episode punish Squidward for doing something right? That's SB, not the episode. I mean, PieGuy, if there's a good driver and a bad driver, it's obvious that the good driver is gonna get screwed because of the bad driver, that's not punishing or anything, it's just reality, don't you think? PieGuy seriously, you make really bad points. BTW, I also find SB's final line really funny, when he says "Looks like you forgot your boat smarts". I love how he's so irritating yet he probably genuinely believes he didn't do anything wrong, although probably MrEnter disagrees with me.
There's not a lot to say about this episode. This episode has a pretty good concept, and good gags that consist on variating the same joke several times, which doesn't get old due to the length of the episode.
Rating: Good
84c - Good Ol' Whatshisname[]
Premiered on July 23, 2007.
Written by Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas and Richard Pursel.
Highlight: What Zit Tooya.
SpongeBob and Squidward compete in a contest to learn the names of all the Krusty Krab customers.
I really like this episode honeslty. It has a really cool plot and I believe that it is cleverly written, and it's specially cleverly written during the second half. The first half is alright, but it's mostly just Squidward trying to learn the customers' names and SB already knowing them. It can be a bit repetitive, but it's only two minutes really, because the first minute is only about introducing the concept. Once What Zit Tooya is introduced, the episode starts to shine, because at first he seems like a weird character who yells at Squidward for no reason, and because Squidward is dying for the prize, he steals his wallet. I think the fact that Squidward goes as far as to do this just fo that prize is really funny, and the chasing scene is also considerably fast-paced and entertaining, ending with a really hilarious twist resulting in that the name of the character was actually What Zit Tooya. But wait! Because there's another twist in the ending. Squidward is in jail, but he thinks it is worth it because when he gets out in ten years (which is kind of surprising, because I don't think you'd be in jail for ten years for a first-grade murder, so it's kind of impressive he's going to jail for ten years for stealing a wallet), he's gonna enjoy his prize, the cruise vacation. Except no, he isn't because the prize was actually just the brochure. Some people have pointed out that this twist, or even both of them were predictable, but I honestly gotta say that I don't find them predictable. It's obviously hard to tell because I've already watched this episode before, but I don't think it's that obvious honestly. You have to think outside of the box to see those twists coming, so maybe if you paused the episode and thought about it you could predict it, but because I don't do that, I don't think they were predictable twists.
As a whole, it's a considerably funny episode with a pretty great plot and some good funny twists.
Rating: Good