If you know me, you know I draw the line at overpraise, and that Stephen Hillenburg is not a god I pray to. I walked the path may did during the 6th season, I certainly saw a lot wrong with it, but then shit happened and now I'm beginning to think SpongeBob makes people stupid, isn't that right LambHoot? Isn't that right MoBrosStudios? Isn't that right PIEGUYRULZ? I'm starting to see why people place a stigma on adults watching kids cartoons.
This'll be a marriage of two standalone reviews, but for now I feel like potentially showcasing that even earlier seasons had episodes that sucked ass, and draw parallels to later episodes even.
One rule, this is gonna focus on seasons 1-3 as those are typically the highest regarded and thus the least criticized. Also something to note, this is based on my own opinion, I'm not gonna change anybody's minds.
Okay that said, let's begin.
#5: Scardey Pants
So, for the show's first Halloween episode, needless to say, all it has is the holiday theme, backed by a whole bunch of fluff. I hate to consider something mean spirited, but I feel that is the most notable aspect of at least 80% of the episode. You can sum up the episode in one or two sentences with how little there is to the entire episode.
All SpongeBob really did was indirectly scare everyone, nobody learned anything, this feels as hollow as other similar episodes like it, as in later ones, and given how clingy people are to the older seasons, I feel I'm in the right to be harsh toward episodes that do not display amazing writing, lest anyone's willing to admit the first season was bland.
Take Scardey Pants and replace it with Idiot Boy, and you'd get the idea that the shift in writing would be inevitable.
Frankly, the B-side was more scary and had better writing, even if that Snailward scene didn't actually exist.
#4: Squirrel Jokes
Okay, I get the intention behind this, but I just feel a premise built upon criticizing discrimination was handled very poorly here, one big equivalent is the Hey Arnold! episode Rhonda's Glasses. I'm not here to say episodes tackling discrimination should not be made, but I feel both episodes go about it in a very blase way.
And yes, Sandy taking offense to squirrel jokes can be considered discimination as they are squirrel jokes made in general, not necessarily directed toward Sandy.
I bring up blase execution because when handled poorly, it inspires a sense of pettiness and makes the victim look thin-skinned. An episode failed if it does not encourage me to feel sympathy toward who I'm supposed to side with.
There could've been a chance to explore the fact that SpongeBob made those jokes because he can't come up with better ones, but that never came. Oh, and the ending, the solution the entire time was to joke about other fish as well. The key to fighting discrimination is to apply it toward other species.
Now some of you may be thinking "Oh you're just trying to defend mean jokes, throwing in ludicrous analogies to justify it.". Okay, you know better than I, but I just think this episode's plot could've been handled a lot better, maybe have Sandy make some sponge jokes, or laugh at herself to dissuade others from taking the piss out of her.
Hey Arnold! handled this plot somewhat similarly, and ironically enough it kinda parallels what I had in mind for this episode. Sometimes all you can do is learn to joke with someone and laugh at yourself. If you know deep down the jokes aren't true, there is nothing you need to address. I get it, it's never fun to be the butt of a joke, and there is a fine line between good fun and bullying, but by reacting sharply it validates the content of the joke.
#3: Club SpongeBob
Even as a kid, this episode got under my skin. Remember the heyday of "Squidward Torture Porn", the dark ages for internet review culture? I could say this episode was the early genesis for that and it can hold some ground.
This is another one of those nothing episodes, where the worst of it seems to be the most prominent. What's the message here? Clubs are stupid? Nothing brings something? Oh but it has jokes, I don't care if this set a new standard for comedy, it's shit. Battlefield Earth was hilarious and that was an awful movie. Isn't comedy the best when it can give you a lot to think about or commentates on something more complex than it lets on?
This episode gives me absolutely nothing, maybe that was its schtick, nothing. It has a vague sense that gives people the impression that something is funny, when in reality it makes people think something funny is going on but it's not, it's just dumb.
#2: The Paper
So how's about this? An episode you can only see a few times a year, if you're watching television live that is. Had this been attached to a non-holiday episode, would more people have talked about this? I mean then again I'm going against a fandom who uses a dead man as a platform for hatred and warped perceptions of business, it's not your show, I don't care how passionately you feel about it.
This episode featured a rather forced conflict. SpongeBob kept pestering Squidward about a gum wrapper and he basically suffers for nothing. Was this based on some old folk tale? Does that mean folk tales suck now? Basically this made for an incredibly grating experience. What was the message here? I have no clue, was it an anti-littering message? Don't litter otherwise someone is gonna drive you ragged over the fun things you can do with paper?
This has to be one of the worst episodes of the show's first season, by far, but wait this is just the second spot.
#1
There aren't any honorable mentions, five were enough for my more egregious examples. I'm not cherrypicking episodes, okay maybe in a certain context I am, but by the end of it, I'm bringing a certain sense of awareness that has been lost on many people.
Those who've followed me up to this point may realize what's coming. I hate to go for the most obvious, but sometimes I can't help but have my back against the wall. No episode then or since has made me feel the way I did, and just the fact that there are people who defend this or root for the demise of those who face the worst in it, really goes to show just how much I don't need to have this show in my life. Review culture from this show on had a bigger negative influence than I could ever imagine, and it made me less biased toward more influential creators.
There are no exceptions that can be made on anyone or anything. If shit's foul, it must be aired out pronto. If it wasn't this way we would have seen more criticisms of:
Hooky
What is it about this episode? Is it that I'm the only vocal critic of it? Is it that had it not been for peoples' bias toward the classic seasons more people would talk about it? Is it that this is somehow embodies aspects that make up a majority of the episodes people bashed on throughout the mid-2010s, and something that major reviewers, those whose word hinged on popular opinion, would easily cultivate? And if not it goes to show why nobody should turn to others for their opinions.
This episode was painful, then and especially now. How do you dissuade someone from doing something that can kill them? Well obviously you should publicly humiliate them and traumatize them, how dare they not head your word? That's all I got from this.
Made2Express called this episode an allegory for drug addiction, and from then I have considered him a complete and udder idiot, or someone so desperate to push the idea that SpongeBob's early seasons are these flawless masterpieces that he cooked up some insane allegory to throw wiser people off track.
"Oh but people should not get angry over cartoons."
Okay, fair, but my anger isn't being directed toward a cartoon, okay maybe it is, but just the fact that a community as long-lived and ongoing as SpongeBob's overlooks any legitimate issues with older seasons, there's no justice, no fulfillment, MoBros got off too easily.
Aside from events that ironically remind me of One Coarse Meal, and even then it was Krabs against Plankton, not his own frycook, the jokes in this episode are incredibly hit or miss, that comedic genius is certainly showing.
But oh it teaches a lesson:
"You telling me you hate Willy Wonka too?" Yeah, I think that movie is garbage, I know I need to give an elaborate explanation, but I'm not gonna, because I know at least one person is having a stroke over my lack of explanation.
I'd say more, but I won't. Why do you like Hooky? I welcome you to try and justify it against my complaints. That's all I'm gonna say.
No comments:
Post a Comment