“Mermaid Pants” never fails to make me feel a little emotionally touched. I mean come on, this is clearly a tribute to Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, and by extension, their voice actors, both of whom have passed. And I’ve already made a big production about this, so I won’t do so again. I just wanted to say my little piece on that.
SpongeBob and Patrick playing Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy is so cute. I love how they’re clearly pretending to be the elderly ones too, probably because of what I said earlier about this being a tribute and all that. And this episode does not take itself seriously for even a second, so I love it. We get to enjoy the hamminess, the cheesiness, and the camp of it all. I adore it. And it really feels like a return to season 1 in a way, because I feel like we were never quite so sold on SpongeBob and Patrick being MM and BB fans after that season. But perhaps that’s just me. I also just really like how in this first section, the forces of evil that SpongeBob and Patrick face are just normal every day occurrences, like Squidward clipping his toenails (though who does that out of a window??? truly evil).
The way SpongeBob and Patrick turn their everyday life into a comic book story is just really fun to watch. Like calling Squidward Dr. Negative and all that, I love it. And it really feels true to how little kids play. This is the kind of child side of the child-adult line I like to see. Also, the way Squidward has a whole little song about hating SpongeBob and Patrick is hilarious, and also relatable as someone who makes songs about the random things I’m doing every day.
The episode then switches gears as SpongeBob and Squidward have to go to work. SpongeBob and Patrick singing to
The Lineman is really cute, and so well-animated! It’s that animation I was talking about before, I’m loving the direction. The animation also makes SpongeBob and Patrick so cute. This singing of course irritates Squidward to no end, which causes SpongeBob and Patrick to start their playing once again. We again get lots of cheesiness and quips and I love it. And it ends with the Krusty Krab being covered in trash.
Things take a turn once again when Mr. Krabs sees what SpongeBob and Patrick have done. He surprisingly doesn’t get immediately angry, and when he asks Squidward to go into the office with him, I’m wondering what we’re about to see. Is it going to be a delayed reaction of the “Born Again Krabs” or “Squid on Strike” variety? Or are we about to see something very different? Spoiler alert, it’s the latter, because in a very funny twist, turns out that Mr. Krabs is a mega comic book geek. This is extremely unexpected, but I love this so much, actually. Not to mention, it gives us the extremely fun last third of this episode.
Yeah, so this last third. This is where I really feel like the tribute comes out to play, because having the core four enact these MM and BB scenes is just right on the nose. And not just that, but it’s so very entertaining. Seeing Mr. Krabs really get into it is so fun, and then I love how Squidward starts taking things too far, as he’s apt to do. This is very in-character for him. And the deliveries from
everyone here are just fantastic. And I love how the episode itself makes fun of everyone with those shout cards.
“Mermaid Pants” is a decently funny episode. It’s not very laugh out loud, but it does have some good gags. I think Squidward in particular really shined here. And a lot of the humor, particularly later in the episode, comes from the episode playing up those comic book tropes and hamminess. So it’s a different kind of humor than we’re used to (other than in other MM & BB episodes). But it’s not a bad different. Just something other.
Episode Tier: Amazing
Episode Score: 9/10
