Okay, what do you mean this isn’t “Salsa Imbecilicus”? This is a much better name for that episode, and I stand by that. And not just because the second word in that episode’s title is hard to write. Yeah, so I really don’t have much to say about “The Nitwitting” before I get started here. It’s an episode I remember somewhat decently, but didn’t have strong feelings towards one way or another. Not sure if that will change after today’s rewatch.
This episode wastes no time throwing us into chaos, as SpongeBob and Patrick are causing a commotion at Barg N’ Mart. And I can only assume they do this often, given the store announcement that there was a “SpongeBob in aisle 6” lol. This introduction also tells me that this is probably going to be a SpongeBob and Patrick episode, though with the title I was expecting it to be all Patrick. I guess this chaos was a result of Patrick having SpongeBob give him a ride to his club for idiots like him. Hmmm…this could go either very good or very bad, because stupidity is not the easiest topic for comedy. At least not in my opinion. And I’ve already said time and time again that Patrick doesn’t work well unless he has the right people to bounce off of, and this set up does not make me optimistic that we’ll have those sorts of interactions. But I always give episodes a fair chance, so let me get out of the pessimism.
Inside the club house, we see that these are real fools…I guess. There’s an uncomfortable overtone here that I don’t quite like that is usually avoided with Patrick’s character, but not this time. And that is that, like, the “stupidity” shown by the characters in this episode is not zany cartoon idiocy. It just feels like a parody of the way real segments of the population act. And I don’t really like that. It feels incredibly ableist. Yeah, this is my soapbox moment. And as this is an issue that I don’t have personal experience with, I don’t want to get too on the soapbox as it’s not my place. But I just feel uncomfortable.
And besides, seeing everyone act this way is not that entertaining to me. I at least like that for everyone to act this way, they must leave their brains at the door, because I would have something to say about the way SpongeBob and Patrick act in this one if not. The stupidity on display is not interesting to me. Also, I’m surprised they brought back the Ice Cream King for this episode. Y’all already know I ain’t care much for him in “Patrick’s Coupon”, so…yeah. SpongeBob’s initiation here is an instant visceral reaction from me, which is another thing that always makes an episode lose points with me. I didn’t realize I’d have to assert this again in season 12, but here we are: Do not make me feel visceral disgust if you want me to really like you, that’s an almost guaranteed ban from the Good, the Great, and for sure the Amazing tiers. Literally if y’all could see the face I made watching that part…ew ew ew. This is worse than “The Splinter” for me, I just want to make that clear.
Y’all remember how I said how seeing everyone act this way wasn’t entertaining? Yeah, we keep on that. Okay so here’s the thing. I don’t like random stupid. Well, I do sometimes, but right now I don’t. I like stupid in reaction to normal things. I like stupid where there’s some kind of logic going in the heads of the people. Replacing parking meters with soup is not the kind of stupid I enjoy. Now, when Patrick’s mad about people throwing garbage in beautiful cans, see that’s the kind of stupid I can get behind, in terms of entertainment value. This episode does not do nearly enough of that given the way it presents the “nitwits”. And so it oscillates between boring and nearly annoying. What’s worse is during this same scene, when SpongeBob’s like “I guess their pockets are full”, which was actually amusing to me, the Ice Cream King rolls up and says that SpongeBob’s not brainless enough to join the empty-headed society. So literally the episode had the perfect amount of stupid right there, and decided to go lower. Whyyyyy.
SpongeBob leaves the group, but he still has to deal with the fact that he literally does not have his brain. This is somewhat interesting as a plot, better than watching the idiots go around. At least until 3 seconds later when SpongeBob becomes just as stupid as them, awful design and all. Sigh. After a few kinda painful minutes, Patrick shows up with all the brains, so SpongeBob tries them all and eventually finds his. So after some trial and error, SpongeBob eventually says his old catchphrase (which needs to come back btw), and he’s no longer brainless. Thank the lord.
SpongeBob declares that he’s going to reverse all the damage that they did during “The Nitwitting”. Well, can he reverse the damage that this episode did to my mood? But he finds that the city’s already back to normal, and that Sandy’s the one who cleaned it up, as she’s part of a club called “Fix the Emptyheads Mess Again”. Yeah…definitely needed. And then the episode ends with the Empty Heads making another mess while singing their song that I don’t care about. I liked the 4th wall break with Patrick breaking the “camera”. That’s about it though.
Yeah, I did not much care for “The Nitwitting”. It wasn’t horrible, as even at its worst it was only slightly annoying. But it was kind of boring, and in some parts it made me kinda uncomfortable, especially given that this episode premiered not that long ago. So I’m not a fan. And because it does have that legitimate issue, I’ve got to bump it down from Mediocre to Tolerable. We’re way too early in season 12 for an episode to be at Tolerable tier, I’m hoping that this is the only one we’ll be seeing.
Episode Tier: Tolerable
Episode Score: 4.5/10
