darkrage6
Floating Shopping List
So i've been reading EmployeAMillion's excellent review thread and enjoying it. Though I have to say I think Spongebob has always been good, I never thought the quality went down all that much after the first movie and there are no episodes I truly despise with a passion.
Though if there is one episode i've never liked much, and it's one episode that's considered a classic and frankly it's one that's always baffled me. That would be "The Paper". When I first saw it as a kid I thought it was kinda eh and it's only grown less impressive on me with each rewatch(Valentine's Day admittedly isn't a whole lot better, but at least it wasn't predictable and it did give me more laughs).
My biggest issue is that a better version of the "Squidward gets fascinated by an ordinary object that Spongebob is having fun with" premise exists-"The Idiot Box". I just found Squidward's actions in this episode OOC, I didn't buy that would be crazy enough to give away ALL of his possessions to Spongebob(it was made even more glaring by Squidward turning down SB's offer to give back the other stuff besides his shirt), some will bring up Christmas Who? as a counterpoint, but in that episode it was explained by Squidward wanting to honor people's Christmas wishes and he admitted that giving gifts felt good, so it felt believable that he would keep giving stuff away due to his own guilt and whatnot, in the Paper he just immediately progresses to becoming so desperate to get the paper that he willingly gives away all his stuff, it just happened too quickly for me to buy it.
Also the episode just wasn't that funny or interesting, the pieces of media I dislike most tend to not be the aggressively unfunny ones(and since comedy is subjective, it's often difficult to critique, so what one person finds very unfunny like say an Adam Sandler movie another person like myself might find it hilarious) or the unpleasant/gross out ones, it's the ones that are just plain boring(I.E. most oscar bait films like Titanic, King's Speech, the Artist, etc). If something is outright unpleasant(I.E. Chaos), at least it giving you some kind of reaction, so it's still doing it's job well in that department at least, if something is just tedious, it's hard to say much of anything about it, and what's "The Paper" largely is for me- Tedious and too thinly plotted.
Yes there are some creative things Spongebob does with the paper and you can tell the animators had fun with the visual stuff, but it's not particularly funny or entertaining to watch, so it doesn't really make me feel anything other then "meh"(same deal with the Bojack Horseman episode "Fish Out of Water", nice visuals, but I really didn't find the story engaging or interesting at all) plus while yes cartoons can get away with Spongebob doing reality bending things with the Paper, it kind of stretches it for me since "The Idiot Box" never had to resort to that, SB and Pat didn't do any reality breaking with the box, they just had really effective imaginations. Here Spongebob has a magic touch, So Squidward not being able to replicate any of that feels more like a dumb plot contrivance then anything else.
Another issue is that the whole "No matter how much I beg" gag is one that i've never found particularly funny whenever it's used in media, largely because it's too predictable(though I will say when that trope was redone in Krusty Love, it was at least kind of funny there) and it tends to play out more or less the exact same way in every piece of media i've seen it in-character tells another character not to let them do something no matter how much they beg, then they inevitably start begging for the thing and eventually get it but not without getting screwed over in the process somehow, and that gag plays out exactly how would you expect it to in this episode with no variation(that's another point, SB is usually good at subverting traditional gags, but when it plays them straight it's considerably less interesting)even as a kid when I first saw this episode, I knew pretty much exactly how it was going to play out the moment the "No Matter How Much I Beg" gag came up, and that's another mark against the episode-it's too darn predictable, and if there's one thing Spongebob is very good at doing, it's being unpredictable, even if you can guess how an episode might end, it won't necessarily get there the way you think it will(and of course the whole subverting traditional gags thing I mentioned) and for an SB episode to be this generic and predictable that even 10 year old me could guess pretty much exactly how the second half was going to play out is definitely a sign of poor writing IMO.
Another point-the ending, Squid not being able to do anything with the paper just plain wasn't funny or clever, Idiot Box had a much more clever ending- Squidward thinks he's managed to get the same amazing imagination as SB and Pat while he's being taken to the dump, it's more funny because he's blissfully unaware that he's ending up with less then he started, whereas in the paper it just feels like the writers couldn't think of a clever way to end the episode.
Not to say there aren't good parts here and there(the flipbook scene was kind of funny) but not enough to salvage the episode.
So yeah those are my thoughts on this IMO not-so-classic episode, I won't say I hate it like I do say The Simpsons- Boys of Bummer(which somehow manages to be both boring and unpleasant) or Hey Arnold-Arnold Betrays Iggy(which even Craig Barlett hated), but if I went the rest of my life without ever seeing it again, I can't say i'd be too broken up over it(and considering it's paired up with a holiday episode, that fortunately means it rarely ever airs on TV thankfully)
I'd rather see any of the "scummy" episodes again over this one(never really got the intense hatred for "Spongebob, You're Fired" honestly).
Though if there is one episode i've never liked much, and it's one episode that's considered a classic and frankly it's one that's always baffled me. That would be "The Paper". When I first saw it as a kid I thought it was kinda eh and it's only grown less impressive on me with each rewatch(Valentine's Day admittedly isn't a whole lot better, but at least it wasn't predictable and it did give me more laughs).
My biggest issue is that a better version of the "Squidward gets fascinated by an ordinary object that Spongebob is having fun with" premise exists-"The Idiot Box". I just found Squidward's actions in this episode OOC, I didn't buy that would be crazy enough to give away ALL of his possessions to Spongebob(it was made even more glaring by Squidward turning down SB's offer to give back the other stuff besides his shirt), some will bring up Christmas Who? as a counterpoint, but in that episode it was explained by Squidward wanting to honor people's Christmas wishes and he admitted that giving gifts felt good, so it felt believable that he would keep giving stuff away due to his own guilt and whatnot, in the Paper he just immediately progresses to becoming so desperate to get the paper that he willingly gives away all his stuff, it just happened too quickly for me to buy it.
Also the episode just wasn't that funny or interesting, the pieces of media I dislike most tend to not be the aggressively unfunny ones(and since comedy is subjective, it's often difficult to critique, so what one person finds very unfunny like say an Adam Sandler movie another person like myself might find it hilarious) or the unpleasant/gross out ones, it's the ones that are just plain boring(I.E. most oscar bait films like Titanic, King's Speech, the Artist, etc). If something is outright unpleasant(I.E. Chaos), at least it giving you some kind of reaction, so it's still doing it's job well in that department at least, if something is just tedious, it's hard to say much of anything about it, and what's "The Paper" largely is for me- Tedious and too thinly plotted.
Yes there are some creative things Spongebob does with the paper and you can tell the animators had fun with the visual stuff, but it's not particularly funny or entertaining to watch, so it doesn't really make me feel anything other then "meh"(same deal with the Bojack Horseman episode "Fish Out of Water", nice visuals, but I really didn't find the story engaging or interesting at all) plus while yes cartoons can get away with Spongebob doing reality bending things with the Paper, it kind of stretches it for me since "The Idiot Box" never had to resort to that, SB and Pat didn't do any reality breaking with the box, they just had really effective imaginations. Here Spongebob has a magic touch, So Squidward not being able to replicate any of that feels more like a dumb plot contrivance then anything else.
Another issue is that the whole "No matter how much I beg" gag is one that i've never found particularly funny whenever it's used in media, largely because it's too predictable(though I will say when that trope was redone in Krusty Love, it was at least kind of funny there) and it tends to play out more or less the exact same way in every piece of media i've seen it in-character tells another character not to let them do something no matter how much they beg, then they inevitably start begging for the thing and eventually get it but not without getting screwed over in the process somehow, and that gag plays out exactly how would you expect it to in this episode with no variation(that's another point, SB is usually good at subverting traditional gags, but when it plays them straight it's considerably less interesting)even as a kid when I first saw this episode, I knew pretty much exactly how it was going to play out the moment the "No Matter How Much I Beg" gag came up, and that's another mark against the episode-it's too darn predictable, and if there's one thing Spongebob is very good at doing, it's being unpredictable, even if you can guess how an episode might end, it won't necessarily get there the way you think it will(and of course the whole subverting traditional gags thing I mentioned) and for an SB episode to be this generic and predictable that even 10 year old me could guess pretty much exactly how the second half was going to play out is definitely a sign of poor writing IMO.
Another point-the ending, Squid not being able to do anything with the paper just plain wasn't funny or clever, Idiot Box had a much more clever ending- Squidward thinks he's managed to get the same amazing imagination as SB and Pat while he's being taken to the dump, it's more funny because he's blissfully unaware that he's ending up with less then he started, whereas in the paper it just feels like the writers couldn't think of a clever way to end the episode.
Not to say there aren't good parts here and there(the flipbook scene was kind of funny) but not enough to salvage the episode.
So yeah those are my thoughts on this IMO not-so-classic episode, I won't say I hate it like I do say The Simpsons- Boys of Bummer(which somehow manages to be both boring and unpleasant) or Hey Arnold-Arnold Betrays Iggy(which even Craig Barlett hated), but if I went the rest of my life without ever seeing it again, I can't say i'd be too broken up over it(and considering it's paired up with a holiday episode, that fortunately means it rarely ever airs on TV thankfully)
I'd rather see any of the "scummy" episodes again over this one(never really got the intense hatred for "Spongebob, You're Fired" honestly).
