With a title like that, why wouldn’t I want to watch this episode? Can you sense the sarcasm? Because it’s there. Oh believe me it’s there.
Starting off with this ringing joke is for sure a choice that was made. I think the joke went on for too long, and eventually the ringing itself got annoying. But eventually we find the source of the ringing that SpongeBob hears: Mr. Krabs, who is currently in the middle of Pavloving his customers lol. Quite diabolical. And something that companies do in real life, but perhaps with more finesse. Maybe this show really is educational after all! Petitioning all intro to psychology classes to use this scene to teach behavioral conditioning instead of some old video.
This episode seems to really be a fan of changing the Krusty Krab interior and exterior. First is the random fireplace at the beginning, and now is the bell tower lol. As always, this show does not care about continuity. With the big bell being rung, people all across Bikini Bottom are coming in mindless droves to the Krusty Krab (that’s not quite how behavioral conditioning works, but we all know that this show takes an artistic license to a lot of things). Mr. Krabs seems to be having a good time in this episode. I wonder what will go wrong?
I don’t have to wonder for very long, because suddenly Patrick appears, creating a star-shaped hole in the door. And he comes in…having a tantrum. Hmmm…let me guess, he’s been conditioned to have a tantrum when a bell rings. We’ll return to my prediction later. This tantrum is not entertaining. Straight up. I will say, though, when Mr. Krabs says “what the halibut is wrong with you”, I for sure thought he said “hell” for a split second. So that was funny. I’m not entirely sure why they thought Patrick screaming no a whole bunch would be entertaining??? Because it’s not. This is nowhere near “Valentine’s Day” level of quality. It’s just rapidly getting closer and closer to being legitimately annoying.
SpongeBob manages to calm Patrick down, because this is apparently a regular occurrence. Listen…I know that Patrick being on the child side of the child-adult line is common, however…this ain’t it. And considering the title of the episode, I can only guess that it’s going to continue not being it for the next 6 minutes. Oh yeah, remember my prediction from earlier, that Patrick got conditioned to tantrum upon hearing a bell ring? Yeah, I was right. Not that that’s much of a feat. But seeing child Patrick throw a tantrum over not wanting to take a bath isn’t very entertaining either. Again, who’s idea was it to make an episode about Patrick throwing tantrums???
To help Patrick, SpongeBob decides he’s going to silence every bell in town…so I guess we’ve now entered full artistic license as the far easier thing would be to extinguish the conditioning. But okay. So he goes off to do that, while we stay with Patrick and Mr. Krabs. Because Mr. Krabs decides that if he can’t get money off of the bells, then he can get money off of Patrick’s crazy moves. Hm…let me guess, Patrick can only do those moves when he’s having a tantrum and by the time he’s put up against the wrestler, SpongeBob’s already made all the bells in Bikini Bottom silent. Making predictions like this is kinda fun. It makes this otherwise boring episode more fun for me.
Meanwhile, we see SpongeBob on his escapade to silence all the bells. And this of course has adverse effects everywhere he does so, like the fire department. I was surprised to see that Salvation Army reference…I feel like that’s a little too specific for this show. We usually see parodies of very general things, not specific companies. And I think we should keep it that way. It disrupts the immersion.
Looks like my prediction was wrong, and Patrick is able to get to tantrum mode very quickly upon the bell being struck. But of course…Patrick is having a tantrum, not fully fighting. He brutalizes his opponent, but I don’t imagine this lasting for very long. Mr. Krabs jumps in with the remedy that SpongeBob came up with, and it looks like he’s gonna get his money…until another bell rings and Patrick starts his tantrum all over again.
We then cut back to SpongeBob who’s heading back into the Krusty Krab after silencing every bell in Bikini Bottom, because he’s just the best friend like that. And we see Patrick with the trophy he won, so it’s nice to see that he at least got to keep that. And Mr. Krabs got his million bucks too. Which he puts in the cash register. Which has a bell on it. Yeah can’t say I’m a fan of the same joke being used twice in a row. I’m also not a fan of the slo-mo, y’all know I don’t like that. Patrick ends up destroying much of the restaurant, and all of the prize money. And then his parents show up, as they’d seen Patrick fight that day. I love how SpongeBob immediately was on their butt for the bell-ringing. Which is when we learn that his parents never actually rang a bell when it was bath time. Which makes Patrick stop having a tantrum immediately. Turns out his parents squeezed his rubber duck when it was bath time. So does this mean that Patrick generalized the sound of a rubber duck to a bell? We don’t get any explanation for the bell thing so…that’s just going to be my assumption.
“Patrick’s Tantrum” was just kinda dull for me. I feel like this episode did not do enough to entertain beyond Patrick’s tantrum shenanigans. And since those didn’t work for me, the episode didn’t either. I also think that it suffered from some pretty poor writing, particularly at the end. I know it’s probably just supposed to be something like “Patrick’s so dumb he can’t even remember what he’s been conditioned for”, but I want something more than that. And that’s just how it is.
Episode Tier: Okay
Episode Score: 6.7/10
