267b. Dream Hoppers

Pugs4Thugs

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This was a fun one. I liked the mostly-dialogueness aspect of the episode. And I really enjoyed the surreal vibe. I love all these new things the SpongeBob crew has been doing, so many of them have been paying off big-time, at least for me.

Like with its sister episode, Krusty Koncessionaires, I think that this episode greatly benefits from its sister episode. I like the fact that they tie into each other. I said this in the post for that episode, but I think that SpongeBob needs more of that. Even if the episodes don't tie into each other, I think that purposefully pairing two episodes together is a great idea. This episode is quiet and calm, while the other one is loud and crazy. I just really like that a lot.

I definitely need to rewatch this episode though. I think I'd give it a 7.5/10? That's a rough estimate though. Personally I liked Krusty Koncessionaires better, but mostly because I prefer dialogue over no dialogue.
 

pgh214

Thanks for the Facelift!
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It was okay. It didn't feel like a SpongeBob episode though. I watch SpongeBob for the dialogue and this had nearly no dialogue. I did laugh once though. The music was a bit weird. Definitely worse than Sleepy Time and I also liked Koncessionaries better. The tie in of the episodes made no difference for me. Also, I think the crew just dropped Sandy entirely for Season 12 lmao. She's been in like 8 episodes all season, felt like she could've gotten a cool dream sequence here. 6.5/10
 
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I really wish this writing team could be allowed to make their own series instead of being forced to keep SpongeBob alive. They're obviously super creative, but these types of episodes always feels forced because the world of SpongeBob just isn't designed for them.
 

Season 4-11

7 Years of Hospitality
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Not really a fan of this one. Besides being such a blatant ripoff of Sleepy Time (to the point where the plot synopsis is nearly identical to the one for Sleepy Time), it's not a funny episode and the story was kinda eh. I think this episode would work a lot better if it was mainly about SpongeBob and Patrick, but instead the episode chooses to focus on a Krabby Patty with a face just kinda running away from SpongeBob the whole time. The silent film style is a mostly unique idea for this show (unless Reef Blower counts), but I don't think they leaned into that aspect enough to make it worthwhile. I was also annoyed by that stupid dance Patrick kept doing. The ending was weak, the story was lame, and despite being a short, it felt like a lot of this episode was filler.

3.5/10

Not the worst episode, but not a very good one.
 

Pugs4Thugs

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Now arriving at our final episode of the season, we’ve got “Dream Hoppers”! And this is doubly exciting because “Dream Hoppers” does that thing I adored from “One Trick Sponge”—directly references the events in its sister episode! And where “One Trick Sponge” is confirmed to take place during “Swamp Mates” (and I guess after too, since Patrick does show up at the end), this episode is a direct continuation of “Krusty Koncessionaires”. I love this sooooo much.

The most notable thing about “Dream Hoppers”, other than the beginning of the episode, is that this episode has no dialogue (well, it doesn’t outside of the beginning scene, so it’s not quite like the comparison I’m about to make), something we haven’t seen go down since “Reef Blower”. And, well, I mean…I don’t quite love the no dialogue thing, because I prefer the witty humor of wordy jokes than slapstick and visual gags, which are the kinds of humor this episode is required to use. Doesn’t mean this episode is bad, but it does mean it has a distinct disadvantage from concept alone.

The plot of this episode is of course SpongeBob hopping around dreams to the sounds of some classical pieces and some more techno pieces (Jean-Jacques Perry for the win!). The classical music used here, instead of the normal SpongeBob SquarePants fare, does help to make things stand out even more. But…it’s also another disadvantage LMAO. If I wanna hear classical music, I’ll break open the Mozart albums. I’m here for steel guitars and ukeleles! This is more of a nitpick than the disadvantage I specified earlier, so I won’t spend any longer discussing this. Let’s talk about the dreams!

The dreams themselves have lots of fun visuals, which is good because of how much this episode relies on said visuals. Now that I think about it, this episode is similar to “One Trick Sponge” in this way as well, except for that episode the emphasis on visuals was entirely in the last minute or so, while here, it’s all throughout. I like the way that some parts of this go along with the tempo of the song. As for Patrick’s dream, this part has some really cool shots and visuals, I really liked that. I also felt that the music fit more here. As for Squidward’s dream, SpongeBob and Patrick literally crash into it. And unlike “Sleepy Time”, Squidward’s dream isn’t going down without a fight.

“Dream Hoppers” is simply a very creative episode. While not everything it does is quite for me, I can appreciate the creativity immensely. This episode really feels like a…cool down. It feels like it would fit perfectly in between two episodes, which makes it funny that it’s the last episode of the season. But you know how some people have said that seasons 6, 7, and 8 feel like Sunday afternoon reruns? This episode kind of gives those vibes too. And that’s also why this episode complements “Krabby Koncessionaires” really well. We need more purposeful episode pairings like this. I feel like most are just thrown together, which I’m sure is something Nickelodeon does, but we need more episode pairs where the episodes are meant to be watched together. It makes for an interesting viewing experience.

Episode Tier: Great
Episode Score:
8.2/10

Note: Oh my…that’s a wrap on season 12! As per usual, I’ll post my general thoughts on the season tomorrow. I’ll also be posting the review for Sponge on the Run either later today or tomorrow, as I want to do it before I start season 13, so be on the lookout for that!
 

SpongebobMaster

The Guy Who Reviews UHHHHH
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This is a basically Perfect version of sleepy time it explores more on the weirdness of dreams and the creativity and weirdness of this episode is unmatched so yeah really like this one
 
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