For today's episode, we've got "Slimy Dancing"! And I always, always mix this episode up with "I Heart Dancing", like I was fully expecting to see Squilliam when I sat down to rewatch this episode. I like that this episode is about Squidward's dancing hobby, because I feel like that's something we haven't really looked at in a while, and I always love a good hobby exploration.
This episode starts off well enough. I liked the beginning montage of all the ways Squidward has "improved" his dancing, I thought it was fun. And then when SpongeBob and Patrick enter the scene playing limbo, that got me thinking about how I haven't played limbo in a very long time. I also just liked how in general SpongeBob and Patrick were planning on entering the dancing competition as well, without Squidward's intervention. I feel like it adds more depth to their own characters, and their relationship with the town. It's nice to see them be involved in something outside of jellyfishing, Glove World, and the Krusty Krab, you know? And again with the limbo game, I love how they made a gag out of it, it was even funnier the second time around.
Squidward is perfectly egotistical and pompous in this episode, which means all of his Ls are quite gratifying. His dance performance was really fun to watch, and as someone who is cultured (read: has gone to university dance productions lmao), I can tell he’s being more pretentious than anything. Just kidding, I know nothing about dance. I also love that once Squidward gets kicked tf out, we get a third rendition of the limbo gag too. Patrick is also a savage in this episode, though the poor guy gets repaid in a horrendous butt cramp. Speaking of that cramp, I really liked that running gag, I thought it had great timing and it was a great way to end the episode too, but I'll get there in a moment. It wasn't particularly funny but it was amusing. I thought the whole bit with Squidward telling SpongeBob that art is suffering was pretty funny too, it reminded me a lot of "Artist Unknown", with Squidward taking all the joy out of SpongeBob's art because of his own misery.
The way Squidward ends up inside SpongeBob’s body is hilarious, and an unexpected direction for this episode, but I like it. Is this "SquidBob TentaclePants" 2.0? Honestly, SpongeBob with Squidward’s limbs is such an interesting design lol. And as we move to the actual competition, I also liked all the previews we get of the other contestants too, those were some pretty fun acts, especially the coin guy who was doing magic while dancing. And then we get a lovely repeat of what happens in "Culture Shock" with nobody liking Squidward's dancing, and I love how everyone comes back when Squidward’s dying from pain, it’s hilarious. The animation on the cramps is honestly exactly how they feel too, seriously. I get those stupid calf cramps every so often and they're horrendous.
Once Squidward gets revealed to the audience and SpongeBob and Squidward get disqualified, my immediate question becomes how did SpongeBob and Patrick get through to the finals then? Oh well, I’ll ignore it in favor of seeing how literally every other contestant cheated their way to the top, in quite interesting ways.
I also really love how this episode has an epilogue for essentially no reason. Like literally it’s just here for time purposes I assume but it doesn’t matter to me because I love this epilogue, it’s hilarious. I love how we cut to a random house and we find out that Patrick’s “dance” has become a dance fad. I feel like this ending is even funnier in light of TikTok (although, do people use TikTok for dances now? Or does it serve more of a Vine capacity? I don’t use the app so I wouldn’t know lmao). I also love how this epilogue includes Mr. Krabs for no reason like why is he here???? Clancy Brown was just in the studio that day and they were like “hey you wanna record yourself laughing, saying yeah, and groaning in pain real quick?”. I liked that everyone had different cramp animations too. The mother makes me ask some questions…
"Slimy Dancing" in general was pretty good, although not super funny. Also it felt shorter than it actually was, which isn’t a good or bad thing, just something I noticed. I'd say this episode fits nicely in my "Great" tier. Really, it would probably go in "Good", but even though this episode isn't that funny it never bores me or anything, so there's not much reason for me to put it lower than "Great" lol.
Episode Tier: Great
Episode Score: 8.3/10