Popeye's Top 30 Worst SpongeBob Episodes Ever (with some honorable mentions)

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Written by Luke Brookshier, Nate Cash, and Derek Iversen

Storyboards by Luke Brookshier and Nate Cash

SBMania Rating: 2.8

Remember earlier how I talked about why I didn't like "Night Light" that much? Well, the same reasons basically apply to this episode too except that it's done 1000x worse than in that episode unbelievably. There's just so much here that really makes me mad that I really have to tear into this piece of crap before talking about the last two episodes on my countdown. In fact, I think I hate this one even more than I already do with "Boating Buddies." They're both equally terrible IMHO and two of the worst episodes of Season 6 ever. This is also probably the worst Mermaid Man and Barnacle boy episode ever made. Again, if it doesn't have their names in the title, it's almost guaranteed to suck hard, unless it's something like "Back to the Past."

The episode begins like your typical Mermaid and Barnacle Boy episode with the narrator introducing the audience to these characters watching TV. SpongeBob and Patrick suddenly out of nowhere show up and Patrick in the most unfunny and stupid way wakes up the superhero duo. Scared, Mermaid Maid flings his Mermerang/Boomerang at SpongeBob and Barnacle Boy asks for the Mermerang back. SpongeBob throws it back towards him and it results in a long boring scene with nothing but this happening and both SpongeBob and Patrick act really really really really annoying in this episode. Ugh. I already want to watch something else at this point but I have to keep going.

In a super lame twist, the Mermerang keeps flying around the retirement home and it scares everyone off and Mermaid Man, Barnacle, SpongeBob and Patrick all end up down in the Mermalair. Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy are injured by SpongeBob and Patrick landing on them and they end up in the hospital. SpongeBob wakes Barnacle Boy up in a really creepy and unfunny way and there's a pretty lame joke about SpongeBob bringing Barnacle Boy flowers. My God, what's with this episode and random gay jokes? It's so annoying. Anyway, Mermaid Man gets a phone call and it turns out that they've been chosen to be contestants at the Bikini Bottom Shuffleboarding Competition but with them in the hospital, Spongebob and Patrick have to take care of that for them. They are Certified Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy Impersonators and they continue to act really annoying and high on sugar that I want them to just shut up already.

Barnacle Boy gives them these rings that when they touch them together, it allows SB and Patrick to turn into their duplicates and I can't believe how lame this is. Really, it speaks for itself.


(are you kidding me? These costumes are so cheesy. My God, any idiot could tell that it's just SpongeBob and Patrick in crappy costumes!)

Barnacle Boy warns them first of all and of course, that all goes past their heads as predictable as ever. They go off in their costumes and nothing of substance happens. Just really bad jokes about the word shuffleboarding. Ugh. Patrick's so excited that he's gonna kick some butt at the tournament and you'll never believe what happens next. It's possibly some of the worst possible writing I've ever seen on this show ever. There are no words for this. Really and I'm getting increasingly angry just trying to type this out so here we go.

Patrick says that it's gonna be an action pack ride and everything and SpongeBob interrupts him by saying that they've already won the tournament and then this happens.......


WHAT????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHA, WHA, WHA, WHA, WHATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT????????!!!!!!!!!!!!

Phew, gotta calm down, but they can't be serious with this.

Out of nowhere, without any buildup or context or anything, it's now established that SpongeBob and Patrick won the tournament??????????? The writing here is just awful. Awful, awful, awful, awful and this episode has some of the worst storytelling I've ever seen in anything I've ever watched. What the ::dolphin noise::? This is really insulting to my intelligence and that alone just made me so mad when I first watched this episode. I think this episode supports my theory that since Nick ordered a ton of episodes between Seasons 6-7 that it contributed to the significant decline in quality of the series between these seasons and how garbage like this was able to seep through the cracks even when you have the same guy that wrote "Krusty Towers" credited for this. It's unbelievable how this piece of garbage got made and how crappy it already was to begin with before this out of nowhere, poorly written twist was somehow incorporated in this episode.

Patrick SOMEHOW also got a trophy in his back pocket or whatever the heck it was and just wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Terrible shoehorning was enough to really what little potential this episode had. Completely ruined right here for me and what's the point of calling this episode "Shuffleboarding" if there wasn't even any shuffleboarding to begin with. My God. This episode just sucks so much that I don't even know if I wanna keep talking about it anymore. It really speaks for itself just how bad it is.

The episode just gets even worse when the initial plot of that episode is replaced with.........are you ready for this? Patrick suggests that since there's no one in Bikini Bottom dressed up as Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy patrolling the town that they have to do it themselves and basically, for the rest of the episode, they go around arresting people for NO reason and throwing them in a jail cell and it's just utter crap all around. Patrick's stupidity again is over 9000 and he also manages to ruin this episode ever further for me. At least SpongeBob tried to talk sense into him at first but it's just no....no....no.....no.....NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The security guard comes in, throws a Krabby Patty away and that makes SpongeBob so mad that he throws him into the jail cell too. In the weakest twist ever, SpongeBob and Patrick go ahead with their dumb plan to make me even angrier to the point where I just wanna throw my computer out the window. They arrest everyone for the dumbest reasons ever and they come across ManRay innocently doing his laundry. He stupidly thinks that SpongeBob and Patrick ARE Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy themselves and SB and Patrick do even more stupid, annoying crap like assaulting the old lady and having a really really really stupid battle involving clothes and really bad puns.

They finally arrest the two and put them in jail too. The jail is so full of people that did NOTHING wrong that it explodes and you can hear the "my leg" gag make a comeback in this episode. Really the only good part about this episode AT ALL just like how SpongeBob actually said his catchphrase in "Stuck in the Wringer." Too bad even THAT had to be used in one of the worst episodes ever.

Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy are initially pleased that SB and Patrick took care of their duties for them and the angry townspeople go after them, even though they did nothing wrong here at all and it's complete and utter (word I can't say here). AAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the worst part about this awful episode is that SpongeBob and Patrick get absolutely 0 comeuppance at all for all the wrong they did! My God, this episode is absolute trash and should have NEVER been made. Nothing went right here at all and it had 0 potential from the beginning. I don't know what else to say.
 
Terrible episode. One of Season 6's worst.


But yeah, that still isn't close to most of S7.
 
More_Spongebob_Sandy said:
Terrible episode. One of Season 6's worst.


But yeah, that still isn't close to most of S7.
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You're in luck. The next two episodes are both from Season 7 and if I'm in a good enough mood, I'll post a review of one of the episodes either tonight or tomorrow. I will not spoil anything else here but I think you'll have some idea of what those possibly might be.

The reason this episode makes me so mad besides how crappy the plot already is was how completely poor the writing is in this episode. Most of the stuff I've covered here at least tried to have somewhat of a coherent story even if it still sucked. Even "Smoothe Jazz at Bikini Bottom" didn't change its plot abruptly like this episode did and SB and Patrick are so annoying in this episode that it made me wanna turn the computer off. Also nothing funny, interesting or enjoyable this ep in any way possible so by that reasoning, that's why I decided to tie this with Boating Buddies and put both of them really high on the list. Season 7 may have more crap but these two episodes for me are pretty awful in their own right.


And just to recap here are all the episodes I've talked about on the countdown.

30. Good Neighbors, Tentacle Vision and Cephalopod Lodge
29. Squid Baby
28. Gullible Pants
27. Professor Squidward
26. Sponge-Cano!
25. The Play's The Thing
24. A Day Without Tears
23. Night Light
22. All That Glitters
21. Squid Wood
20. Penny Foolish
19. Someone's in the Kitchen with Sandy
18. Pet or Pests
17. The Cent of Money
16. Yours Mine and Mine
15. The Main Drain
14. Trench Billies
13. Summer Job
12. Rodeo Daze
11. Hide and Then See What Happens
10. Dear Vikings
9. The Clash of Triton
8. Whatever Happened to SpongeBob
7. Smoothe Jazz at Bikini Bottom
6. Choir Boys
5. Stuck in the Wringer
4. To Love a Patty
3. Boating Buddies and Shuffleboarding

So far 12 of these episodes came from Season 6 and 13 of them came from Season 7. Wow.
 
I believe we all know what the top 2'll be.
 
I'm super bored so might as well get #2 out of the way now and it's no surprise to anyone that I hate this episode with a burning passion along with many, many, many, many, many other people.

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Written by Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas, and Mr. Lawrence

Storyboards by Casey Alexander and Zeus Cervas

SBMania Rating: 2.0

This episode itself I think actually could have been a decent idea had it not been for the horrendous and absolutely appalling execution of it. It's sort of why "Sponge-Cano" made me so mad but this episode is a monster all on its own. I know many other people have talked about this episode in depth and I've even written an in depth review of this episode before but I don't feel like copying and pasting it here and I wanna look at this episode again with a fresh eye.

With that out of the way, here's my take on what makes this episode so terrible and of course, the title card music as people have pointed out is strangely upbeat and doesn't really fit how dark and horrible this episode truly is. The episode begins with Mr. Krabs taking a money bath and so far, I don't see anything wrong with this episode. It's actually a pretty good start so far. Mr. Krabs smells something funny and checks up on SpongeBob who's making Krabby Patties and SpongeBob says that he smells some kind of explosives. Plankton's up to his old tricks again and bombs part of the Krusty Krab in a really cool way. Really this is the only part of the episode that I actually found to be pretty decent.

To defend himself, Mr. Krabs uses SpongeBob as a peashooter to try to get Plankton down and under control. Plankton shoots a missle thing at Krabs and SpongeBob and just when you think it's gonna explode on them again, there's actually a pretty good surprise. Turns out that it has a claw and grabs SpongeBob and Krabs. I will also give this episode credit for that. If I hadn't seen the rest of this episode, I would have never gotten why this episode gets so much hate across the board. Had they really ran with this plot much better than they did, I would have even go as far as to say that this episode would be one of Mr. Lawrence's best post movie era premises in some kind of alternative reality.

Plankton wants the formula as usual. Krabs refuses and then Plankton makes the claw thing squeeze them even more. Mr. Krabs sneezes on Plankton after Plankton tries to tickle him a bit. Without even tickling him, SpongeBob decides to be an idiot and tell Plankton where the formula is. Really???? WTF dude. You're that scared of being tickled???????? Face palm right there already. I can see that this is where the episode is going to go completely downhill from here. This episode was off to a very good start for three solid minutes until that happened. Sigh.

After that, this episode decides to have one of the most major plotholes in all of SpongeBob history when SpongeBob says he smells whale blubber. That SOMEHOW scares Plankton despite the fact that he was actually Pearl's dad at ONE POINT ("Algae's Always Greener" cough cough, I wonder whatever happened to that. First "Krusty Love" and now that episode). What a big middle finger to continuity right there though there are times where the loose continuity on the show actually works. Certainly didn't here though. There's already a lot wrong with this episode that really makes me mad but we're not even close to being done here.

Annoying Pearl (who I never really liked much ever on the show) comes in and that scares Plankton. That gives Mr. Krabs an idea to come up with a story that if Plankton doesn't go away, Pearl will eat him. Plankton goes into the freezer for a quick second and it's also implied that Pearl has eaten plankton before. Again, WTF. That's not even funny dark humor there and it really makes me think that Pearl's a cannibal in the SpongeBob universe. My God, this episode is so confusing and such a mess so far. If you really wanna know how to do dark humor right in the context of SpongeBob, please watch "Nasty Patty" or watch this clip below.



(Ahhhhhh.....comedic relief and brilliance right here. Keep dark jokes short and leave enough interpretation for the audience to the point where it doesn't affect the story)


(oh no......oh no.........it's Kardboard Krabs with an evil look on his face! I wonder how much worse he's gonna make this episode. It's like Mr. Hyde just took Dr. Jekyll's place here. Not good)

Pearl continues to act so annoying and unlikable and asks her dad for mall money. Krabs gives her the mall money and Pearl gets the two out of Plankton's claw. Mr. Krabs wants Pearl to give Plankton a scare but she's too much of a stuck up (can't even say the word here, but I REALLY hate Pearl in this episode as much as I do with Mr. Krabs)......let's just say she's being a stuck up brat with a really irritating voice that won't shut up either. SpongeBob gives Pearl more mall money and Pearl gets mad because it turns out the money is counterfeit. SpongeBob then explains that those Wacky Bucks are what Mr. Krabs pays with him. God, stupid Kardboard Krabs is such a scumbag in this episode that it's not even funny either.

Mr. Krabs gets the dumbest idea I've ever heard of wanting to "borrow" one of Pearl's dresses and the episode continues to really make me mad with all these plotholes and terrible characterizations of literally everyone here. Plankton runs to Karen and tells her this story about how his ancestors got eaten by whales (this part has been criticized by a lot of people because they said that whales only eat krill but doing a Google search, I found that they also eat plankton so I'll let them off the hook for this part but come on, the rest of this episode is complete garbage). I really don't mind Karen in this episode much like other people have. She's been the most in character out of everyone so far and I also give the writers credit for that.

Plankton takes the garbage out and out of nowhere, Pearl (or is it really her) pops out of the dumpster. This scares Plankton so much that he runs back inside The Chum Bucket and barricades the door. You can really see how terrified Plankton is of Pearl and for no reason whatsoever, Pearl SOMEHOW manages to get inside the Chum Bucket. It's not explained why or how that's even possible and don't give me the old it's just a cartoon excuse for bad storytelling like this. Plus I already really really hate Pearl enough already so if it really was her doing all this twisted stuff......I don't wanna go there but you get my point.

Plankton again tells Karen what happened and Karen can't find any whales in the lab so he doesn't believe him and goes back to her primary functions. "16 paranoia filled days later" (the time card), Karen is calling Plankton to get his dinner and we see that Plankton has become a Howard Hughes lookalike. Apparently this is also how Howard Hughes looked in the last few years of his life and when he had gone insane from paranoia himself. I don't know how many kids would understand this reference at all but yeah, it's apparently here for whatever reason. I never thought a SpongeBob episode would go that far to include a pop culture reference here and they really play up how disturbing this scene is.



Commander%2BBunny%2B-%2BHoward%2BHughes_02.jpg


Plankton cries and Kardboard Krabs dressed up as Pearl laughs at him. Not good. Stop being so annoying and cruel.

Plankton has a nightmare about a monster Pearl chasing him through a steel corridor and lands in her stomach and catches up with his relatives. Lots of "Plankton's Army" references in this episode even though the episode is still absolute crap. The gastric acid dissolves half of his whole body and it's just really really disgusting. Yuck!!!!!

When Plankton wakes up from his nightmare, Kardboard Krabs laughs at his misery and it really annoys me how poorly set up this episode is. Krabs is just too unlikable for me to root for and it really makes me want to sympathize with Plankton more. That's really sad that even I'm sympathizing with a character that's supposed to be one of the major bad guys on the show.

Here's where one of the most controversial parts of the entire episode takes place. Plankton's outside crying again and decides to lay on the road to try to get run over probably to emphasize that Krabs had gone too far. IMO, I think he went WAY WAY WAY WAY TOO FAR in this episode and shouldn't have done any of that scary crap to Plankton in the first place. SpongeBob walks by and asks Plankton what he's up to and he tells him that he wants to get run over by a bus or better yet he wants SB to step on him. There's already so much poorly done dark humor in this episode that the suicide scene is the least of my problems when it comes to talking about the many many many other things wrong with this episode but I will say that this part isn't funny either.

There have been suicide jokes in cartoons before but again, like in that clip I linked to, the jokes were usually really really short and didn't interfere with the plot of the cartoon in a major way and also cartoons like Bob Clampett's "An Itch in Time" were already really well done and funny to begin with so it doesn't come across as being cringeworthy as the scene was in this episode. In well done cartoons like that, the audience isn't pressured to feel sorry for particular characters because they already know the cartoon was done in good fun and that there wasn't any malicious intent behind those. Just a mini rant on this subject. It's all a matter of execution and whether someone has enough skill to make this kind of dark humor funny and this episode certainly DOESN'T know what it wants to be. It's trying too hard to balance heavy drama with comedy and it's just not fun to watch either way.

SpongeBob decides to be a moron and go back to the Krusty Krab without making a better effort to help Plankton out and tells Mr. Krabs....I mean Kardboard Krabs that Plankton's out on the street forlorn. Kardboard Krabs like the complete heartless jerk that he is laughs at what's happened and this scene just hurts even more if you've already watched episodes like "New Leaf", "Friend or Foe" and "Best Frenemies." This is just sick and again, not funny either. Kardboard Krabs continues to act so unlikable that I want to turn off the computer and SpongeBob tries to convince him that what he did was going too far. SpongeBob gets worried because he broke one of the Krusty Krab rules because he disclosed where the secret formula was. He walks back to Plankton and tells him what Krabs's secret fear is and that gives Plankton an evil idea. Somehow he really downplays what just happened to him before and this part also makes no sense either.

Kardboard Krabs wants to scare Plankton even more so he dresses up as Pearl again. Plankton shows up at the Krusty Krab and tells him that he's not scared of whales anymore and crappy animation or whatever happened here makes Krabs talk like Pearl SOMEHOW. Again, another plothole. Plankton then reveals what Krabs's secret fear is and it turns out he's afraid of mimes and you think Krabs is finally gonna get some comeuppance for what he did so this episode could at least just be a slightly less tolerable version of "The Cent of Money" but no. You know what happens next? In a really really lame twist and slap to the audience's face, a bunch of whales show up outside of the Krusty Krab somehow and that scares Plankton off again. Another slap to the face here is that Krabs wasn't scare of mimes the whole time. WOW.

This episode really really left a bad taste in my mouth on several levels. Bad writing, poor storytelling, awful characterizations and so much dark humor that falls flat on itself that it deserves the amount of hate it gets. Ugh! Thanks a lot Kardboard Krabs for ruining this episode completely.
 
I don't think I really need to bother reading #2 since I don't really know if anyone on SBM has said anything different.
 
More_Spongebob_Sandy said:
I don't think I really need to bother reading #2 since I don't really know if anyone on SBM has said anything different.
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I could have easily just linked someone's video review of the episode and I know there are several on YouTube but I don't wanna be accused of copying anyone and besides, I still wanted to give this episode an in depth review really getting at what bothered me so much about it.
 
If there's anything good about One Coarse Meal, it's that Aaron Springer didn't help write it.
 
After I'm done with this list and get to all the honorable mentions I want to briefly talk about (the reviews aren't going to be as long or in depth as these and to save myself some time too), I'm considering doing a Top 20 Best Post Movie SpongeBob Episodes list so I can really praise and talk about the episodes from the movie that I really like in much more detail than I have in my reviews of them. Stay tuned! That means I'm probably going to be watching more episodes I haven't seen to see if there's anything there that I think would be worthy enough for me to talk about. :)
 
3b: Eh, it's bad not unwatchably godawful.

2. No arguments here. It sucks but i can't say i flat out hated it until Mr Krabs laughs about the fact Plankton is trying to kill himself. WTF.
 
Perry The Platypus said:
3b: Eh, it's bad not unwatchably godawful.

2. No arguments here. It sucks but i can't say i flat out hated it until Mr Krabs laughs about the fact Plankton is trying to kill himself. WTF.
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Glad you agree with #2!

If the writing for "Shuffleboarding" didn't suck so much and didn't make the same mistake "Night Light" did (not only that, but the plot they replaced the shuffleboarding one with was even worse than what they had in mind in the first place), I would have put it lower on the list but either way, I consider it one of the worst episodes with Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy in it hands down and worthy of a thrashing in my opinion.
 
You Called Me Crazy But I Really Love Boating Buddies.Shuffleboarding Is Horrible.And OCM Definitaly Same Place In My List.Only Diffrence My Number 1 Is Demolition Doofus.
 
Kerdem said:
You Called Me Crazy But I Really Love Boating Buddies.Shuffleboarding Is Horrible But I Wouldn't Put It This High.And OCM Definitaly Same Place In My List.Only Diffrence My Number 1 Is Demolition Doofus.
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That's perfectly fine if you like "Boating Buddies." DadMom AngryPants actually likes that episode and "The Splinter" and she's pretty cool about being honest about her opinions so I have no problem that either. It's just that no matter how many times I've tried to watch that episode, it's always made me mad personally so that's why I have it on here.

I think I'm still gonna stand by my decision to put Shuffleboarding in the Top 10 but from my POV, there's no excuse for the kind of bad writing that was in this episode and it's another case where I've tried to rewatch this episode several times but it's always made me mad too.
 
Sorry. This post reeked of backseat modding. Still agree with Popeye's choices on 3b and 2. Can't wait for number 1!
 
SBManiac!!!!!! said:
Sorry. This post reeked of backseat modding. Still agree with Popeye's choices on 3b and 2. Can't wait for number 1!
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Backseat modding? I don't understand what that was about but glad you agree with my choices again. :)
 
Popeye Q. Krabs said:
Backseat modding? I don't understand what that was about but glad you agree with my choices again. :)
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Well, the post was originally a response to Perry the Platypus asking him to not use "Torture ______" because it's a banned term. I changed it when I realized that would be better suited for the moderators to ask him and not me. And you're welcome.
 
You know what? Since I'm super tired right now and want to get this list done pronto so I can do other stuff, I'm just quickly summarize what I hate about this episode because I really don't feel like having to rewatch and so many other people have already explained why it sucks so much so here you go.

And drumroll please........

The #1 worst SpongeBob episode of all time personally for me is..........




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Written by Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas and Richard Pursel

Storyboards by Casey Alexander and Zeus Cervas

SBMania Rating: 1.4

I really shouldn't have to explain anything about why this episode is complete junk. Even Casey Alexander himself had problems with this episode and how it turned out on his part. Yeah, that's how much it sucks. Terrible characterization for SpongeBob, the Puffy Fluffy design looking like something that would be better fit on an Adult Swim show like Superjail rather than SpongeBob, crappy plot, crappy story, and crappy everything which is why I gave it a 0/10 and it's the only episode in the entire show I've ever given such a rating to.

All the reviews I've seen about this episode have already done the work for me and the reason I wrote a review about OCM and some of the other episodes before was because I had more time to do it and I wanted to offer my own perspective on them but with this........yeah.......and again, Richard Pursel disappoints me big time with this. Come on man. Not cool.
 
*applauses* Wow great list, Popeye. Hope you'll do more of these. :)
 
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