248b. Squid's on a Bus

spongie33

spongie33

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Discuss/rate this episode.
 
First half was ok, I could tolerate it but it wasn't very funny. Second half is really funny though, with many great gags, like the Grim Reaper.

Good Episode (7/10)
 
I give it a 6/10 because I feel like people other than Squidward would've been annoyed with SpongeBob and Patrick's antics.
 
it was a okay episode

6/10
 
Bad episode. Another Squidward torture episode that has a good premise that was poorly executed. Like Professor Squidward, this episode should've gone the route (no pun intended) of having Squidward's own arrogance and cockiness cause him to fail, rather than having Spongebob and Patrick meaninglessly be in the episode just to annoy him.

Also, this episode is similar to Boat Smarts in the sense that Spongebob (and Patrick here) are extremely unlikable, causing injury to other passengers who are following the rules of the bus, and putting other drivers on the road in danger. This episode would've worked better if it went more along the lines of how it did in the beginning, before Spongebob got on the bus. Squidward realizing that controlling the bus is a lot more difficult than he believed, being overly strict with the rules on the bus causing passengers to turn against him, finding the map difficult to explore, etc.

For example, instead of having Spongebob and Patrick's carelessness and stupidity land Squidward in the Crush County, it could've been Squidward ignoring the map because he finds it too difficult to read, and ignoring other passengers' directions, believing he knew the area better than them, and ending up there after taking a wrong turn.

Also, this episode also fails for not showing both sides of the conflict. Yes, at the end we got to see the bus driver struggling with working Squidward's job, but it was only for maybe half a minute of the episode. If there was a back and forth to see both of their increasing cockiness and misconceptions progressively cause more and more failure in what they thought were easy jobs for each other, and in the end they both realized that they should have more respect for one another's careers, then this episode would've been a lot better. Because in the beginning of the episode, when Mr. Krabs mentioned that the two get into it every morning, it sets up for a really interesting rivalry that could've been fleshed out and been really interesting.

Even in the end having some kind of conclusion from the bus driver saying something like, "oh my god, you had to deal with those two?", just signifying that Spongebob and Patrick are a nuisance that he has to deal with at his job too, and then maybe the two of them bonding over that common hatred of them, and getting back at Spongebob and Patrick could've helped the ending somewhat. But nope, the driver just quits and that's... it. There's no payoff in the end, which makes this episode feel entirely pointless. Also, who was the fry cook supposed to be if Spongebob was on the bus all day??? This episode has a lot of problems.

The one good thing I can say about it is the design and overall location of Crush County was really unique and creative. I'd like it be explored more in future episodes.

Final rating: 4/10.
 
Not only the beginning of the episode feels rushed, this episode is extremely bland. The only parts that I liked was the animation and the skeleton bit.
47/100 Mediocre
 
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Meh, but some of the old music tracks that came back was great.
 
I think this was a meh episode. 6.5/10
 
I like this one its funny

Rating: Good Episode

Rankings:
The Krusty Bucket (Amazing)
Plankton's Old Chum (Superior)
Stormy Weather (Great)
The Krusty Slammer (Great)
Gary's Got Legs (Great)
Gary & Spot (Great)
Squid's on a Bus (Good)
The Ballad of Filthy Muck (Good)
Swamp Mates (Good)
FarmerBob (Good)
Pineapple RV (Okay)
One Trick Sponge (Alright)
King Plankton (Bad)
The Nitwitting (Despicable)
 
For whatever reason, the title of “Squid’s On A Bus” amuses me. Maybe because of how blunt it is. I don’t know. But anyway, this is an episode that I remember a decent amount of. I remember the basic plot, and a few details after that, but not a ton. And that’s a shame because the premise of this episode is already very amusing to me. Like yes I want to see Squidward and a bus driver switch places, tell me more! The one thing I don’t like about this, right off the bat, is that the bus driver has a different design. I don’t care that the normal bus driver is an incidental (Nat, to be more specific), that’s the bus driver we’ve had for years, don’t change him! And yeah, this bus driver has been used in a couple episodes before, but I feel like Nat is more familiar.

This episode is actually a critique of inefficient public transportation. Okay, okay, I’m joking let me stop. No but the way this episode begins immediately gets me thinking because we’ve never seen anyone on Conch Street have to get to the Krusty Krab by bus before…usually they walk. And I’ve never seen a bus stop right outside SpongeBob’s house like this (even though buses have stopped there before). I gotta admire this show’s commitment to not having any real continuity. It just makes writing episodes a lot easier I imagine, less rules to follow.

The beginning of this episode does make me want to deck Squidward though haha. As someone who lives in an area of inefficient and/or nonexistent public transportation (i.e., most of the United States lol), I don’t understand the notion of blaming the bus drivers for things that are clearly out of their control. So I get the bus driver here. And I’d be rooting for him even more if he was Nat, but let me not get into that. I get even more on the side of the bus driver when Squidward is the worst backseat driver ever.

The plot of this episode is that Squidward and the bus driver decide to switch places for the day, to show that each other’s job ain’t so easy. These type of plots are very hit or miss for me. It’s already a choice for sure for this episode to have Squidward do this with a character we have no prior investment in (another point for Nat!), so the episode kind of starts at a disadvantage, but I’m optimistic it might be able to turn things around. I love how Mr. Krabs is the one who gets the challenge going, cuz he’s tired of the two bickering all the time.

As you might imagine, Squidward doesn’t have the easiest time as a bus driver. Sure, it starts out fine, but first he starts violating the rights of the Bikini Bottomites lmao, and then…SpongeBob gets on the bus. SpongeBob is the perfect funny little weirdo in this episode, the way he just casually says “Oh Squidward you’re in all my dreams” is hilarious. Also I love how apparently SpongeBob helping Squidward drive actually does something. The back and forth between these two in the episode is hilarious. It’s not banter, but it’s just goofy shenanigans. Mostly caused by SpongeBob being an adorable weirdo and Squidward being utterly done with existence. So, their usual dynamic.

And of course, once Squidward says those magic words (”there’s only one thing I can think of that would be worse”), Patrick’s at the next bus stop. Yeah Squidward, with the way this episode is, I’d say that would be worse. The SpongeBob-Squidward dynamic is absolutely perfect right now, and I fear Patrick’s inclusion might disrupt that. Of course, there’s no avoiding the pink starfish forever, not for me and not for Squidward. SpongeBob and Patrick cause a bunch of chaos, and as I expected the dynamic isn’t quite as great, but I still like it. Why SpongeBob and Patrick start fighting like cats and dogs though, I have no idea. And eventually Squidward has enough and decides to throw them off the bus…leaving the wheel alone. Oh I wonder what could happen next. Well what happens is they all end up falling into a ravine with extreme pressure. Don’t think of the submarine, don’t think of the submarine, don’t think of the submarine…

Eventually, we cut to the bus driver who’s having a difficult time with Squidward’s job, as he only wants exact change. We only see him briefly though, as SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward end up landing the bus right on top of him. And Squidward’s happy to be at his real job, cuz he ain’t cut out for bus driving.

One last little bit, but there were a few production things I wanted to point out in this episode. I really, really liked the art style and animation in this one, it’s some of the best I’ve seen in these latest seasons, and that’s saying something considering how I generally really like this era of the show’s art. And then there a couple of sound design things I felt like pointing out in this episode too. First is the track Pua Nani O Hawaii. I really like this track a lot, it’s been on my soundtrack playlist for a long time and I want it to return to the show with the quickness. Second is that familiar sound that played throughout the episode. You might remember it from “Dunces and Dragons”. At least I do, and I wonder why this sound kept playing throughout the episode lol. It was funny mostly because I kept associating it with that episode. Other than that, it was slightly out of place.

I enjoyed “Squid’s On A Bus”. I said before that the type of plot this episode uses is very hit or miss, and honestly, I’m not sure how to rate this episode on that because we only did half of the plot. We didn’t see how the bus driver was faring at all until the end of the episode, so it didn’t have that typical back-and-forth plot structure we normally see. Squidward’s adventure driving the bus was entertainment enough though, and honestly the episode probably would not have been as good had we kept going back to the bus driver, given that like I’ve been saying this entire time, we have no prior investment in him. So perhaps the show is learning not to do things like that. Yay! Again, this episode exhibits the trend of adding Patrick for no reason and then proceeding to not know what to do with him, as he slowly disappears from the episode once they go into the ravine. I’m not really sure what’s going on with that, but this has been something I’ve noticed since at least season 11. At times it makes the episode worse, and sometimes it doesn’t really diminish my enjoyment, but it does make me critique the writing.

Episode Tier: Great
Episode Score: 8.8/10
 
Hey guys, you want to see an episode where SpongeBob and Patrick act really annoying for 11 minutes while bad hijinks happen to Squidward again? Yeah, that's what I thought...

3/10
 
this episode is just the "bye squidward" scene and the bus scene of sand castles in the sand if you stretched those scenes out to 11 minutes and then sucked all of the funny in the bye squidward scene from 2000 patties under the sea and made spongebob and patrick more annoying
1.5/10
 
SpongebobMaster said:
this episode is just the "bye squidward" scene and the bus scene of sand castles in the sand if you stretched those scenes out to 11 minutes and then sucked all of the funny in the bye squidward scene from 2000 patties under the sea and made spongebob and patrick more annoying
1.5/10
Click to expand...
  1. Gary's Got Legs (11/10)
  2. The Krusty Bucket (10/10)
  3. Gary & Spot (8/10)
  4. Swamp Mates (8/10)
  5. Plankton's Old Chum (8/10)
  6. The Krusty Slammer (8/10)
  7. Stormy Weather (8/10)
  8. One Trick Sponge
  9. King Plankton (7/10)
  10. Farmerbob (6.5/10)
  11. Pineapple RV (3.5/10)
  12. The Ballad Of Filthy Muck (3/10)
  13. Squid's On A Bus (1.5/10)
  14. The Nitwitting (1/10)
 
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