EAT AT THE KRUSTY KRAB.
The Good Krabby Name[]
This is a really funny episode. It may not be funny in the same line of Super Evil Aquatic Villain Team Up is Go!, but it provides more laughs than other episodes.
This episode's concept resembles a lot of early episode concepts where it contains a fairly simple yet relatable concept. Here, Mr. Krabs makes SpongeBob advertise the Krusty Krab to get 2% of people who haven't been at the Krusty Krab to come to the restaurant. This episode obviously parodies business owners who want to have everyone obtain their products, but exaggerate it as Mr. Krabs wants EVERY SINGLE PERSON in town to buy a Krabby Patty. This is a really good way to utilize Mr. Krabs' characterization to make a plot like this. Plus, there's something about episodes involving advertising that never fails to intrigue me. It's similar in a way to hotel episodes (NOT PATRICK'S STAYCATION) where it's very easy to be very creative and clever, and the plots themselves are pretty simple and don't require much understanding. So anyways, a good majority of this episode is simply SpongeBob and Patrick advertising the Krusty Krab in silly ways. The first one is SpongeBob sending out papers to people while in a Krabby Patty costume. He only advertises to one customer through this method but it manages to be hilarious. The main thing that makes this joke funny is that the customer himself is simply going to the Krusty Krab, yet SpongeBob feels the need to advertise to him even though he was already going to the restaurant. Afterwards, there's Patrick thinking the Krabby Patty costume is a monster, and this is another great comedic moment. There's a lot of great slapstick with Patrick trying to beat up the patty, but the payoff at the end is extremely unpredictable. Patrick punches the patty up in the air, and at the same time, Plankton comes out to try and get the Krabby Patty, only for the costume to land on him. I love the irony that Plankton says that "today he'll get a Krabby Patty," and then the second he says that, a Krabby Patty costume lands on him, so technically he DID get a Krabby Patty. Plus, the good timing of the slapstick helps with how unpredictable and funny it is, and doesn't feel like filler because it's a quick gag that only takes up a few seconds.
The rest of this episode is just really good humor. There's honestly nothing much else I can talk about aside from humor because most of the jokes are well-timed and it's pretty clear the episode's quite creative. So I guess I'll just continue talking about the jokes of the episode. I love how despite how badly SpongeBob and Patrick advertise the Krusty Krab, they somehow get people to come. For example, a police officer sees that SpongeBob and Patrick planted the words "Eat at the Krusty Krab" all over town using paint. Normally, this would be considered vandalism to an officer, but then there's the hilarious twist that he'll go to eat a Krabby Patty before dealing with the issue. Aside from that, there's other genius jokes such as the Krusty Krab's toilet paper telling people to eat at the Krusty Krab, which is funny for two reasons. The obvious first one being that it is very awkward to see the Krusty Krab being advertised on toilet paper, with the added bonus that the guy somehow feels hungry after being advertised that way. But the other hilarious reason is that their advertising the restaurant IN THE RESTAURANT. That's a really clever thing about this joke and it also makes sense because the advertisers are none other than SpongeBob and Patrick.
Continuing on, there's the skywriter joke which is a hilarious literal-definition joke, and a guy screaming at SpongeBob and Patrick after seeing the Krusty Krab advertised, where he screams in such an exaggerated and silly fashion it works as amazing slapstick. Honestly, it's really not worth it to continue talking about this episode because I'm just going to be mentioning the jokes of this episode and how they work. You can probably guess how they work if you've watched the episode. I will admit since this is a "jokefest," it can't get a fantastic rating, but this is an episode I had quite a bit of fun with.
Episode Rating: Terrific (8/10)
Move It or Lose It[]
Not exactly a very interesting episode, but friendly reminder that this is season 8.
This episode's concept is that Mr. Krabs and Plankton have to get signatures from the people in order to prevent their restaurants from being "shut down" because of a distance rule. Hmmm, doesn't that sound familiar? Oh yeah, it sounds very similar to this episode's SISTER. Yes everyone, welcome back to yet another advertising campaign episode? But unlike The Good Krabby Name, this episode barely puts any effort into making creative jokes with the whole advertising for petitions. Well, it's not really advertising, but it's still trying to get people to do something. Instead of great jokes which get more funny as I rewatch the episode adding rewatchability to the episode, this episode goes for more bland such as SpongeBob accidentally causing destruction on Mrs. Puff's boating school for the millionth time! It doesn't help that the scene itself is entirely filler. The scene should've ended with the boat technician guy refusing to sign SpongeBob's petition, but no, we have to extend the scene for 30 more seconds just to make a joke that's so forgettable it's not even funny. There's also Plankton making everyone think Krabby Patties are bad, which blatantly rips off Free Samples but in a much less clever way. Seriously, why would the citizens suddenly get convinced by papers being plastered everywhere that Krabby Patties are bad? In Free Samples, they at least had more of an excuse as the citizens actually tasted the "Krabby Patties" and hated them. Here, there's no excuse whatsoever except stupid plot point. Oh, and SpongeBob gets the customers back by saying "KRABBY PATTIES ARE DELICIOUS!" How does THAT convince the customers of why Krabby Patties are "dangerous?" Wouldn't the customers still know that they are dangerous? And even then, why would they even care if they were dangerous if they still eat them after being told their delicious, but indirectly that their still "dangerous." Seriously, this is so lazy and shows the worst of season 8's unoriginality.
Why exactly is all this petition stuff occurring anyways? Because some guy needs the restaurants to be exactly 100 feet apart. The episode doesn't give a reason as to why this law even exists, it's just there as a plot device. Anyways, while Plankton is packing up, SpongeBob mopes for him and accidentally gives him an idea for the petitions. This is completely out of character for SpongeBob. He doesn't just SAY something unless he's being being tasked to do so (his gullibility) or if he's forced to do so. Just take a look at One Coarse Meal. In that episode, Plankton threatens Mr. Krabs and SpongeBob for the formula, causing SpongeBob to blurt out where the formula is. Sure, that may seem out of character as he normally wouldn't do that, he was in a tight situation there, and didn't really know what he was thinking. Here, it feels like he was placed in there to give Plankton the idea of paying customers for petitions, which is so lazy and makes him out of character. The whole idea of this and how it plays out simply works as plot progression, and the first POSITIVE thing I'll say about this episode is that it actually makes the Krusty Krab lose for once. That was something I wasn't expecting because rarely does the Krusty Krab ever lose, and even if the Chum Bucket wins, the Krusty Krab still somehow wins in a twist. Of course, the ending does end up having the Chum Bucket suffer, but I don't mind it as much because it still does something other episodes don't do.
And yeah, I do feel the ending is better than most of the episode. The twist that the Krusty Krab would just get moved by one foot was pretty clever and while it may have seemed obvious, I do think this episode utilizing the term "bulldoze" vaguely does help create suspense throughout the episode while preventing the twist from being obvious. And before that, we do get some good determination from the Krusty Krew (minus Squidward) where they've literally chained themselves to the restaurant to prevent it from getting bulldozed. It makes the scene very suspenseful as we don't want the Krusty Krab, the restaurant that has been in the show for 8 seasons, to go down just because of a silly petition. It also improves the twist even more because it gives a good sense of relief that the Krusty Krab was not actually going to get bulldozed. I do think they could have made us care more about the Krusty Krab by showing more about how valuable the Krusty Krab is to Mr. Krabs (not just for money), how much SpongeBob loves the job, and perhaps even have Squidward share some memories at the restaurant and have him want to protect it despite not being a big fan of the place. I think if this episode had Plankton win the petition throughout the episode rather than just have SpongeBob be out of character to allow Plankton to win the petition, my wishes would've been in place. However, I do think this episode does this enough so that this ending scene is solid. Plus, it does have the Chum Bucket getting destroyed in an epic fashion with the bulldozer driving into it. Oh, and there's some good irony in that joke to as the guy said that "bulldozing was outside his purview," but seconds later he ended up destroying a restaurant. It's a great way to end this mediocre episode.
This episode is simply so lazy for all the reasons above. The ending is a good way to wrap things up but this is easily one of the most uninteresting episodes from this season.
Episode Rating: Meager (4.5/10)