Being an adult is hard, and children’s happy-go-lucky attitudes can sometimes strike a nerve with even the most patient of grown-ups.
Children are like sponges (how topical), they suck up an alarming amount of disparate information and squeeze it out all over the world, often creating a mess. Kids say “the darndest things” and no one seems to know where they got the idea. Their ideas are so genius, so creatively asinine, that they baffle everyone around them. In their best written moments, Spongebob and Patrick are children. Squidward is a brilliant character because he is an adult’s way into the show. However, as I’ve aged, I’ve come to empathize more and more with that stick-in-the-mud. When I was a kid, I thought Squidward was a stick-in-the-mud. Dee-DUT-deely-DUT-deely-DA-dee-DA-dee-DAAAAAA! Classic. I personally find the most quotable moment of the episode be the breathless a capella mouth-music that the narrator provides to underscore a painfully slow zoom-in shot of a Krabby Patty. Krabs’ backstory (he was a war veteran after all), we see Squidward get delightfully shat on (“no one wants to be a Squidward”) and of course, we get the infamously instructional slogan P.O.O.P. The creators of the show understood this, and saw the opportunity for parody. They’re awkward, pointless, and often poorly produced. There is nothing less exciting, less fun, and more cringe-inducing than a corporate instructional video. What does it borrow? The most boring thing imaginable: a job training video. It, instead, borrows from the real world, like many of the best Spongebob episodes do. They take the idea to its most absurd conclusion and usually cause a good-natured catastrophe for everyone involved. They play out that idea, much to the chagrin of Squidward and everyone else in Bikini Bottom. A standard Spongebob episode goes like this: Spongebob and Patrick get an absurd idea. I think this episode is in the top five, maybe even the top three because of how brilliantly it interrupts the established form of the series. This episode caused a hell of a lot of hooplah when it came out, and for good reason. The Krusty Krab Training Video (image credit: Nickelodeon) I’m judging based on laughs, poignancy, and overall quotability. Forgive me if I get it wrong, gang, but I think these episodes are the brightest stars in the Spongebob constellation. But I have to make a list of the very BEST episodes, and so, therefore, I’ll try. While I think the humor became hit or miss from season 4 onward, those early years episodes never fail to disappoint. Every episode of classic Spongebob is good (and when I say classic I mean seasons 1 through 3). The show is risky, hilarious, and not afraid to make jokes that go over its younger viewers’ heads. It’s spawned anime intros and amusement parks, and I, personally, think it belongs in the Comedy Hall of Fame along with the Marx Brothers films and The Office. Spongebob is one of the greatest shows of all time, hands down.
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