Dang, if only it were a month later, because for today’s episode we’ve got a Halloween special, “The Legend of Boo-Kini Bottom”! This episode is a must during my annual Halloween marathon, and from first sight I loved this thing. And that’s for a lot of reasons. As you all should know by now, I love Halloween, and any episode that even captures a little bit of that vibe is adored by me. And the last episode to be about Halloween specifically was “Scaredy Pants”, so it’s been a long time. And secondly, this episode also features that super cool stop-motion animation that we saw in “It’s A SpongeBob Christmas!”, so that’s super fun as well, and makes this episode stand out. And of course, this episode is a special, which means double the fun!
Alright, the first topic that I’ve gotta address about this episode is the ambience. This has been beaten into y’all’s heads by now—
I love ambience. If an episode really puts some time and care into its environment beyond the already considerable time and care this show puts into its environment, that’s a huge win in my book. And this episode hits all the markers. The character designs in this one are really good, and that’s of course because of the stop-motion animation, as well as all the costumes we get to see the characters in. Additionally, the stop-motion animation of this episode gives us some neat backgrounds. Obviously, they’re not as detailed as the typical background art of this show, but the set pieces in this episode clearly had so much care put into them, and they really tie the entire thing together. And then of course, we’ve got the music of this episode, which goes just as hard as the tracks from “Scaredy Pants”. Just look at all the music in this
playlist that originates from this episode alone, so many arrangements of already familiar tracks, I love it! I also love how this episode just reuses the “Truth Or Square”
theme song…it was a gorgeous one so I’m glad they brought it back.
Moving right along, let’s dive into the plot of this Halloween special. This episode feels like a continuation of “Scaredy Pants” in many ways, both taking elements from that episode, and adding some different ones. I mean, on the surface, there’s so many similarities—SpongeBob being a scaredy cat, the Flying Dutchman being offended by SpongeBob, and SpongeBob scaring the Flying Dutchman. But everything in between is different. Like, SpongeBob doesn’t stay a scaredy cat the entire episode, which is why the Dutchman is offended. And of course with the longer length of the episode we get more time just going around the Halloween-ready Bikini Bottom.
I really like the characters in this one. I feel like these stop motion specials do a good job at utilizing the ensemble cast, even if it’s only for cameos. At least we get to see them. I think because of the nature of stop-motion animation, every character included has to be thought out even more than when it is a typically animated episode. And so Bikini Bottom typically feels more like a community in these episodes. I think it also has to do with the set pieces too, but I’ve already gone into that a lot so let me get back to characters. Patrick is pretty funny in this one, and bounces well off of SpongeBob. Squidward is also funny for the times we get to see him, his whole onions thing is hilarious. Sandy plays the mad scientist role quite well…we need more episodes with her doing that but legitimately. Mr. Krabs and Plankton are both also just good support, and I love how they both made Halloween exhibits based on each other’s restaurants (Plankton’s especially is really good). And Plankton attempting to strike a partnership with the Flying Dutchman only to completely fail was so in-character. And speaking of the Flying Dutchman, I loved him here, like I always do. He’s one of my favorite recurring characters, after all. He never misses. SpongeBob, of course, is the star of the show. He’s just so wholesome in this episode (which, yes it’s obviously a core part of his character, but I think it’s funny that in both stop-motion specials, SpongeBob’s wholesomeness is an important plot point), and adorable too.
Considering this episode’s emphasis on “scary = funny”, this episode being pretty funny shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Because the episode is stop-motion, a lot of the visual humor we’ve come accustomed to seeing has to be altered, and just like in “It’s A SpongeBob Christmas!”, it transfers very well from 2D to 3D. The visuals in this episode are just excellent, seriously.
And of course, there’s some other things here and there that I like about this episode too. The song in the middle of the episode reminds me a lot of the one from “Ghoul Fools”. And considering I liked that song, you know I liked this one too. I also just really liked the wholesomeness of SpongeBob trying to save his friends. Even though he fails, he succeeds in the end anyway because of the scariness of his own mind. I also really liked how this episode referenced the second movie with Plankton saying how scary it is in SpongeBob’s mind.
"The Legend of Boo-Kini Bottom" was just a really good and solid Halloween special. It wasn't the funniest episode I've ever seen, but it certainly tried and most of the time, that trying paid off. And then of course, there's just everything about the environment in this episode that I love, love, love! Clearly, this is an Amazing-tier episode. Nothing else I can say.
Episode Tier: Amazing
Episode Score: 9.3/10