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Nosferatu's Fave 50

#13 - Have You Seen This Snail?

"Somewhere I hope you're reading my latest three-word poem: Gary come home."

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Throughout the show's history, Gary has always been treated as a background character. I understand the reasons; there's not a lot to do with a character who sits around and says "meow" for most of the day. Still, a double-length episode that not only gives Gary a major role but focuses on the snail for the duration of the 22 minutes is well-deserved and very much welcome. This episode shows that Gary is not only an important character but maybe the most important out of all them. Gary is part of what makes SpongeBob who he is, and nothing demonstrates that more than the image shown above, of the previously jolly little sponge sniveling behind an empty food bowl, reduced to a shell of what he once was. Rarely before has the series had such an emotional resonance, and there was no better episode to have it in than this one, the first two-parter not padded with scenes of Patchy the Pirate and his sarcastic parrot, scenes that would have dragged this episode down and kept it off of my list for sure. (As they did with all the Season 3 specials, which were good ideas turned gimmicky and stale.)

#12 - I Had An Accident

"I know of a place where you'll never get harmed, a magical place with magical charms. Indoors, indoors, indoors!"

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This episode gets its place on my list by being really freakin' funny. Whether he's breaking his butt on a sandboarding fall, or talking to a penny, a chip, and a napkin, or getting beaten up by a live gorilla, you can always count on SpongeBob to give you plenty of laughs at his expense. And the ending is just a perfect little piece of meta-humor that reminds you that you could be doing something productive right now and makes you all the more happier that you aren't.

#11 - Something Smells

"There once was an ugly barnacle. He was so ugly that everyone died. The End."

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This is one of the earlier Season 2 episodes, and it also happens to be one of the best. The writers did well by choosing a plot that had tons of potential for comedy. SpongeBob eats a snack that turns his breath sour, and he has no idea! What could go wrong? A lot, it seems, and with Patrick to accompany him in figuring out what's repelling people, the jokes keep rolling along. This episode wasn't quite good enough to make my top ten, but that doesn't detract from the fact that it's awesome, especially considering how young the show was at the time.

We're down to the final ten! Due to school, I'll have to start on it Saturday, and then we'll continue up the list every Saturday from then on. Don't miss it!
 
Due to the SBU shutdown, I didn't have time to do the next two reviews last Saturday. As consolation, I'll update this again on Labor Day and continue with the Saturday schedule from there.

#10 - Christmas Who?

"I can't believe anybody would celebrate a holiday where a jolly prowler breaks into your house and leaves gifts."

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This was the first-ever SpongeBob special, and the one I'm most fond of. It uses many of the conventions that we would see in later specials, like the Patchy segments and the musical number, but it uses them well. It has much of the brightness and bubbliness you'd expect from a SpongeBob Christmas special, but it also has a tinge of satire, which is evident in quotes like the one above and in the general atmosphere of this episode's Patchy segments. You can tell that the pirate is a parody of overly-enthusiastic Mr. Rogers-types who talks down to the audience while behaving like a child himself. He's very much a delight here, and if he'd been contained to just this special instead of getting re-used and having the joke behind his existence ruined, I'd think more highly of him.

Since this is the only episode of its kind in Season 2, it actually feels special, and as a result, the producers put more effort into it than they put into the trilogy of "specials" in season 3. Like I said in the previous post, they were all good ideas, but they didn't deserve the treatment that Christmas Who? got because there wasn't really anything extraordinary about them. They would have come out better as 11-minute shorts, and the crew would have been able to reserve all fanfare and pirate shenanigans for an episode that actually merited it. An episode like Christmas Who?.

#9 - Squilliam Returns

"We're just a clever visual metaphor used to personify the abstract concept of thought."

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SpongeBob isn't exactly a series known for its continuity. That's why appearances from characters like Bubble Bass and Bubble Buddy in Season 9 were considered such big deals. Obviously, Squilliam's appearance in this Season 3 episode isn't as big of a deal, but it's still worth noting. The episode that Squilliam was in before this one was Band Geeks, an episode considered by many to be the greatest one ever. I'm not sure if that influenced the writers' decision to revisit the character, but the basic structure is similar to BG: Squilliam brags to Squidward about how successful he and his unibrow is, Squidward tells Squilliam that he's something he's not, and Squidward works to cover up his lie and make himself look good in front of his rival. This episode, however, trades the subtly that came with Season 2 with the wackier, outlandish humor of Season 3, creating an episode that is not only distinct from Band Geeks but just as funny, making it a worthy successor. So put down that tiny violin. There will be no sad music tonight.

And that's it for the first two installments of my Top Ten! Two more will be coming this Labor Day!
 
Eh, these are both in my top 20.
 
#8 - Wet Painters

"Can you move it along? I'm all out of time cards."

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One of the things I love most about this show is its ability to find humor from the characters as well as the situations. This is an episode that does plenty of both, and it does it so flawlessly that I'd be crazy not to give it a spot in my top ten. It starts off like any other episode. SpongeBob is fooling around in the Krusty Krab when business is slow, then Mr. Krabs gives him and Patrick a super (super), special (special), secret (secret) assignment: painting the interior of his anchor-shaped house. SpongeBob and Patrick being who they are, they think it's the greatest thing ever, until Mr. Krabs threatens to chop their butts off if they get a drop of paint on anything but the wall. Surprise, surprise; after a hilarious paint bubble scene, they get a drop of paint on Mr. Krabs' beloved first dollar. SpongeBob, in a fit of paranoia, does everything he can to get the paint off, inevitably making it worse every time. Patrick brings his own careless naiveté to the mix, and them together ensure that you won't stop laughing for a minute while watching this episode.

#7 - Idiot Box

"Welcome aboard, Squidward! You've just set sail on the S.S. Imagination."

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This is one of the many episodes that makes an older viewer like me want to be a kid again, so I can experience the wonder and excitement that I felt as a child watching SpongeBob and Patrick make something out of nothing and dance around, caring little about what other people thought of them. This episode embodies what the show has been about since day 1: a fun, fantastical underwater adventure that invites its young audience to get lost in their world for 30 minutes plus commercials. It's never been more, it's never been less, and that's why it's been a champion of children's cable for almost fifteen years now.

In my review for Snowball Effect, I mentioned the Squidward-doesn't-want-to-do-something-fun-but-SpongeBob-and-Patrick-convince-him-to-do-it-anyway formula. That formula is used here, and just like in SE, its given enough twists and turns to make this episode look fully original. There's only one episode that uses the formula better than this one, and it'll appear soon. Most of you will probably be able to deduce it from what hasn't appeared in the list yet, but even for those of you who can't, I doubt that you'll be surprised once we get to it. See you next week! There's only six more to go!
 
I really love both episodes.
 
#6 - Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V

"Ah, Make-Out Reef. Good times, good times."

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I've always been a superhero fanboy, and that's why the Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy saga has such a special place in my heart. The reason most of the MM&BB eps aren't in my Fave 50 and the only other one that made it (IV) is 20 positions below this one is simply because there wasn't anything exceptional about them. I would've been happy to put the entire saga on my list, and I can assure you that all of the episodes are in my Top 100, but none of the others have close to the effect that MM&BB V has. This episode deconstructs as many superhero tropes as it can in 11 minutes, with notable examples of this being the "dark side" of the restaurant and the slightly-insane chief, all of this culminating with

the loss of the superhero team of SpongeBob, Sandy, Squidward, and Patrick, who thought it would be a good idea to jump into a fight without training with their powers at all. The touching reunion between Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy at the end was a rare emotional moment for Season 3, and definitely something that guaranteed this episode a place in my Top Ten.

#5 - Graveyard Shift

"The Sash-Wringing... the Trash-Singing... Mash-Flinging... the Flash-Springing... Wringing... "

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This episode was the closest that SpongeBob ever got to gothic horror. As you can tell from the title, it's dark, and it doesn't try to hide the fact that it's dark. However, unlike Nasty Patty, it doesn't get so dark that it reaches the point of family unfriendliness. It's dark enough to retain the second season's trademark clever, low-key humor, instead of the in-your-face comedy that's more suitable for a Season 3 ep like Nasty Patty.

Also, this episode debuted Nosferatu, who inspired my SBM identity. That alone gets this episode mad props, making it a shoo-in for my top five.

Only four more to go! Hang with me. It'll be a wild ride.
 
I really love MM and BB V. Where else could my username have come from?
As for Graveyard Shift, it's a masterpiece to remember.
 
Nosferatu said:
It's dark enough to retain the second season's trademark clever, low-key humor, instead of the in-your-face comedy that's more suitable for a Season 3 ep like Nasty Patty.
Click to expand...
NastyPatty2002 won't be happy. :P
 
He told me on SBC he'll update later today, so that's a thing.
 
#4 - The Camping Episode

"Good thing we're all wearing our anti-sea-rhinoceros undergarments."

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What makes this episode funny is how mercilessly is subverts the very genre it got its title from. Even in the concept: SpongeBob and Patrick camping in their backyard instead of going in the woods and roughin' it. Then there's their version of the campfire song (The Campfire Song Song, which you should all have burned into your brains by now) and their version of the scary campfire story ("Once I met this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy..."). This episode shows what the writers can do when they're given a tired idea and given the freedom to mangle it until it's almost unrecognizable and they're being sent to the police station for questioning.
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Okay, that was a very disturbing metaphor, but you get my point. This episode is an awesome example of the show's ability to take a cliché and make it into something new and memorable, and for that reason, The Camping Episode gets to camp out in my Top 5.

#3 - Band Geeks

"Is mayonnaise an instrument?"

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Every SpongeBob fan is familiar with this episode in some way, whether it's from watching it or hearing other SpongeBob fans gush about it or watching any of the millions of YouTube videos that sync clips from this episode to the latest pop hit. And this episode deserves its fame. It brought all of the main characters together (along with some minor ones like Mrs. Puff and Larry) and allowed them to play off each other while working toward a common goal. Many of the interactions, like Patrick's and Sandy's, and Mr. Krab's and Harold's ("Big, meaty claws!"), were comically contentious. Then, of course, there was the big musical number at the end of the episode and the freeze-frame that represented Squidward's ultimate triumph, his sweet victory, if you will, better than anything else.

#2 - Chocolate With Nuts

"Let's get naked!" / "No, let's save that for when we're selling real estate."

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What is there to say about this episode that hasn't been said already? It's hilarious. The jokes come fast and each hit their targets with beautiful precision. The humor comes not only from SpongeBob and Patrick's door-to-door antics but from the range of interesting characters they meet on their journey, from a lunatic to a con man to a woman so old that she's literally just a head and spine. (!) This is pristine SpongeBob here, and it's the stuff that kept us coming back for more every week or whenever they decided to freakin' give us a new ep. (It was just as bad as now while Season 3 was airing, trust me.)

I flipped Band Geek's and CWN's positions a lot during the process of writing this list, but this episode came out on top because SpongeBob is, in essence, a comedy, and CWN made me laugh more than any other episode in the series.

Come back next week for Numero Uno, my favorite episode of SpongeBob SquarePants ever! (In case you haven't figured it out from what's missing on the list.) See you then!
 
I think I can guess your #1, but I need to actually look back and see if it's already down :P
 
Here it is. The moment you've all been waiting for!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6yTi153S9Y

#1 - Krusty Krab Training Video

"The money is always right!"

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Nothing pleases me more than when the writers experiment. SpongeBob is not a work of art, and it doesn't try to be, which is why these artsy-type episodes are always such a wonderful surprise. KKTV manages to play with a different storytelling technique while giving each of the show's main characters (minus Sandy and Gary) the spotlight and still being funny through it all. It takes everything that made the show successful up to that point and multiplies it by 1000 while simultaneously ripping it apart. This episode is a masterpiece of structure, of comedy, of everything. Then there's the music. The rock-inspired nature of the episode's theme is a stark contrast to the mundane nature of the episode itself, and this works to parody how training videos try to create enthusiasm for something that is fundamentally boring.

Also, this episode gives us a rare look at the inside operations of the Krusty Krab. It describes their "latest achievements in fast-food technology" and "strict set of personal hygiene guidelines" in an entertaining and slightly self-deprecating manner. The narrator, or "ceiling", as Patrick calls him, seems to understand how absurd everything is, but instead of just commenting on it, he partakes in the fun in many instances, openly defying the expectation that he be detached and unbiased. We get a look into the history of not only the Krusty Krab but Mr. Krabs himself. We learn that he was always a cheapskate, even as a kid, and that he suffered from a bout of depression after coming back from a war. It's not like the series to go this deep into character backstories, and it doesn't do so again until the fifth season episode Friend or Foe, also about Mr. Krabs.

All of this and more is what makes KKTV my favorite episode. That's it for the list! Join me next time when I do my Bottom 5! (jk that's never happening
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or is it?
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) See you then?
 
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