892. SpongeBob Appreciation Day: Patchy's Beach Bash!

Season 4-11

7 Years of Hospitality
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So I finally got around to watching this thing some 3 and a half years after it came out, and I've gotta say this thing is awful - but it makes for a super fun special to watch ironically.

The writing in this episode is so dumb and cliche, like Meghan Trainor crying because she got the courage to sing through SpongeBob (which is a joke I'm sure, but it's really cheesy and stupid, but also funny in an ironic sense). This is also one of those clip shows where they have to have everyone worship the celebrities, like something along the lines of "GUYS LOOK! IT'S _ CELEBRITY FROM _ FAMOUS (show movie performance or sport)!!! COWABUNGA IT'S THAT PERSON!" And what makes it even better is that Meghan Trainor & Anthony Davis are both terrible actors, especially Anthony, so it makes the whole thing feel even dumber, which is a good thing in this case. It's obvious the two of them were greenscreened in after all the island stuff was filmed too, especially towards the end where you can see the border around them.

But once Painty shows up, the whole thing turns into 'let's see how many references we can cram in!" which is around the point it gets less ironically funny and more annoying. The whole trivia thing was a fun concept, but it's really easy, even for the young kids who are supposed to be watching this (like seriously, do you think even a 7 year old would pick Born Again Krabs as the whatever millionth Boating School failure over an episode called "Mrs. Puff, You're Fired?") and it doesn't help that episodes like Born Again Krabs were featured multiple times in the trivia game when there were (at the time) roughly 500 unique segments to choose from.

By the time Abraham Lincoln shows up, it's obvious that the special is self-aware and just goes full-on stupid intentionally, which I think was a good choice. The whole scene with him is super dumb, but it's clear that was the point. Now we're shown the results of the best scene poll on Nick.com, which is a good concept but was clearly unfairly voted on because it's obvious the only ones people could vote on were the super popular ones and the common picks. But still, it's a good idea. I'll get into the top 3 scenes in a moment. After that there's some chant, I guess, and Lincoln's plan to motorize the island doesn't work so they're just trapped forever. It's a dumb ending, but whatever.

Now as for the clips themselves, they're alright. The songs were all obvious choices, but the Patrick clips were pretty good picks and there were some other pleasant surprises (I like that "Krabs VS Plankton" was shown in the Plankton montage), but I've gotta say, the order the clips are played in kinda messes up the flow of the episode as well. One example of this comes in the Plankton clips, where they play clips from "Plankton", "Lame & Fortune", and "Imitation Krabs" in that order. The difference in the visual and animation quality of the clips is really messy and distracting when shown in an order like that, and if they had put them in an order where the clips become higher quality as they go on, I think it would flow better. The clips are fine though, but nothing too special. As for the top 3 clips, I'm glad they weren't ones that were shown earlier in the special. Nick did a good job leaving them out of the prior montages.

Now as an ironic watch this thing is easily a 7 or 8. Super funny and super stupid. But as a serious watch, eh, it's kinda bland. I'll give it a 4/10.

But regardless of the quality of the special, it's a good tribute to Stephen Hillenburg, so good job Nickelodeon, I guess. Maybe next time they can get the actual people behind the show to do the credits.
 
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