Ducktales who? Alvin & The Chimpmunks where? The Powerpuff Girls what? Yeah, I know I was reaching with the latter two, but let me think of random trios in peace. I like how “Sandy’s Nutty Nieces” isn’t even the first time we’ve had triplet relatives of a character in this show—that honor would go to Mr. Krabs’ nephews in “Stanley S. SquarePants”. Yeah, that was a funny joke from that episode…okay anyway, let me get back on track. So, “Sandy’s Nutty Nieces”. I will say that right off the bat this episode is at a disadvantage, because I don’t particularly care for “random relatives/children of a character come around and cause chaos” type of plots. But who knows, perhaps this episode will do something different, do something to make it more entertaining for me. “Bubble Buddy Returns” had Shiny not even talk, which made it funnier, so maybe this episode will have something up its sleeve.
Well, spoiler alert, it does have some tricks up its sleeve. Do they work at making me enjoy this plot completely? Well, no, but they do make me at least enjoy the triplets. The trick here is their little rhyming thing, I think it’s a fun character tic. Also I just thought the way Sandy’s mother is very clearly run ragged by these kids is funny. I know that’s a typical staple of these types of plots, but it’s often done with little taste to be found, but I thought this episode was good at it. I thought Sandy’s little line at the end about the first rule of babysitting her nieces is to not babysit her nieces was really funny.
Getting into the actual plot of the episode, we start with SpongeBob being an unhelpful lab assistant to Sandy until her nieces come to visit. This is why Sandy made you a test monkey in “Perfect Chemistry”, SpongeBob. I love how Sandy referred to SpongeBob as “Uncle SpongeBob” for the triplets…that’s a canon event in many children’s lives, a family friend just being subsumed into the family like that. With the triplets, SpongeBob has maybe even more trouble than he does with Shiny, and that’s saying a lot. SpongeBob gets completely crushed in arm wrasslin’, which is funny to watch. And then SpongeBob decides to take them to the “funnest place in Bikini Bottom”, which the girls are excited about…until they realize it’s the Krusty Krab.
Oh boy, can’t wait to see what kind of chaos they cause in this restaurant. I like how they interact with Mr. Krabs, I thought that scene was pretty amusing. And then they come across Squidward, roasting him to no tomorrow. I also like how the thing that gets Mr. Krabs to kick the girls out isn’t them doing something like robbing him or whatever, it’s them using condiments to make him look like Plankton. The girls quite literally threaten SpongeBob to take them somewhere fun, though of course our favorite guy doesn’t quite register it as a threat lol. But at least this time he does up the fun factor by taking them to Goo Lagoon. Okay that’s it, we need more Goo Lagoon. We are not seeing it nearly enough!
Of course, SpongeBob makes the rookie mistake of taking a nap at Goo Lagoon, leaving the triplets unsupervised…oh SpongeBob, you have much to learn. And he learns it alright, considering he wakes up buried inside of a sand castle…made out of concrete. Which they then get off of him by using a wrecking ball. Poor SpongeBob LMAO. I also like how his bruise remains for a little bit after the scene instead of being written off into never-existed-ville immediately.
SpongeBob takes the girls to his house, where he opens the door to a very unflattering Patrick, who’s basically lost it cuz he couldn’t get the TV to work all day. Patrick probably gets the most time to actually develop a dynamic with the nieces, compared to most of the other characters in this episode. His childishness with getting the best TV seat works perfectly here, it’s hilarious watching these guys go back and forth. I feel like we don’t normally see this kind of behavior from Patrick, and I’m talking specifically about the part where he snickers mischievously after launching the girls off of him. We never see this side of him because mischievous implies actual planning and intent, and as we all know, Patrick is typically as dumb as a box of rocks, aside from rare moments of lucidity. Like this one, apparently. I like it. The nieces eventually come up with a decently complex plan to get Patrick out of their hair, tying the chair he’s in to a bus, and it works…for 3 seconds. Then he comes back, with friends.
Oh, it’s on. Again, I really, really love this dynamic between Patrick and the triplets, it’s quite refreshing honestly. And I love that this episode doesn’t pretend like it regularly portrays Patrick as really strong, as he handily beats the triplets in arm wrasslin’ once he sees a brownie on the table. But this of course makes the triplets use their most lethal card…the tears. Though I wouldn’t say they’re using this in a manipulative manner lol. And with them bursting into the treedome, Sandy is finally able to give them the present she’s been working on…a bounce house straight to Texas.
I liked “Sandy’s Nutty Nieces”. I thought it was a fun and enjoyable episode. Maybe the comedy factor is slightly scaled down, but it’s less that this episode has no jokes and more that the comedy used here isn’t my absolute favorite. But there’s some really good stuff in this episode, specifically everything in the second half I think was excellent. The first half was also good, but not nearly as much so. I also think the episode somewhat missed an opportunity to have the triplets interact with Sandy more, but I’m not sure if that would’ve been preferable to, say, the Mr. Krabs and Squidward interactions, so I won’t mark it against the episode.
Episode Tier: Great
Episode Score: 8.9/10