EmployeeAMillion
Season 12 Time!
Yeti Krabs (Season 9, Episode 10b)
Original Airdate: March 29 2015*
Episode 359 in standard order, Episode 360 in airing order
*copyrighted 2013
Plot: Mr Krabs attempts to scare Squidward into doing more work by telling him about a yeti
Written by Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas and Mr Lawrence
[titlecard]188B[/titlecard]
Title Card Music: Agitation Bridge 2
Across 2014 and early 2015, only 3 new SpongeBob episodes aired- It Came from Goo Lagoon, Kenny the Cat, and today’s episode. Even then, they’d premiered earlier in foreign countries. There was a year-long gap between the last few drips of Season 9a, and the renaissance of the series with 9b, with this episode filling the gap. It’s technically the first Post-Sequel episode, airing on TV after the release of Sponge Out of Water, but imagine being a kid in 2015, now hooked on SpongeBob after the new movie won you over, and this was your first new episode. You can tell I don’t like talking about this episode, as I’ve neglected to actually say anything about it so far, and that’s because it’s so boring.
The main crux of the story is Mr Krabs being upset with Squidward’s laziness, trying to get him to do work, and SpongeBob doing the work instead. That’s all I can really say about the first third of it. Sure there’s some variation in the chores SpongeBob does, but it’s not enough for me to take interest in the episode, as a casual viewer. Then Mr Krabs tries to scare Squidward by telling him a yeti crab will eat him if he’s being too lazy. How old does Krabs think Squidward is? Sure he’s run out of ways to motivate Squidward to do his job, but it’s a stretch for me to believe that Mr Krabs would tell Squidward a scary story for 3 year olds and expect him to believe it. The story itself barely makes any sense. This yeti crab can smell laziness, and eats the source. Okay, what does laziness smell like, and why does the yeti crab only eat lazy workers? I know asking questions about what’s clearly a terrible scare tactic isn’t supposed to be meaningul, but these are the sort of questions Squidward should be asking.
Mr Krabs leaves his employees, and by what the French Narrator calls “sheer coincidence”, the yeti crab actually exists and goes to the Krusty Krab due to its nice smell. He goes in, roars a couple times, and gets different reactions out of SpongeBob and Squidward. While SpongeBob does every chore he possibly can to prevent being eaten, even the ones that don’t make sense, Squidward thinks the yeti’s just Mr Krabs putting on a costume, despite its very different build and being much taller than Krabs. After being annoyed by the yeti for a while, Squidward grabs some stuff from the dumpster outside to dress up like a yeti to prove he can dress like one too. At this point, it just seems like the plot gets too wacky. You’ve gone from virtually nothing happening, to Squidward wearing a yeti costume attacking a yeti while SpongeBob’s doing chores. What is tonal consistency?
Once Mr Krabs comes back and Squidward’s proven wrong, there’s a jump-cut to the yeti crab roasting them all on the kitchen grill. I don’t get how the yeti crab only now gets the opportunity to roast them, especially after the strongest Krusty Krewmember’s entered the scene. Before being roasted however, SpongeBob discovers the yeti’s hungry and feeds him some Krabby Patties. Plotholes about the reveal and why the yeti would even cross the ocean for burgers that weren’t even cooking aside, I like the sequence of SpongeBob cooking the patties. It almost feels like part of a SpongeBob episode. Unfortunately, once the yeti leaves, it seems like nobody’s learned their lessons- Squidward’s still lazy and SpongeBob’s still doing Squidward’s dirty work. It feels like one of the most aimless stories in the entire series.
Now to say what my favourite jokes are, which is very hard given just how bland most of them are. I had to dig through the episode’s script to see which lines I could find funny, because the visual gags get annoying after a while, and I could only find a few which were barely impressionable. The best joke has to be Squidward not caring at the very start of the episode, even as his job’s threatened, but the joke wears thin after being dragged out for 3 minutes. The worst joke, and one of the only other jokes I could mine from the episode, is when we see the yeti’s stomach wanting to be let out after so long without food. It’s a strange, gross idea that doesn’t mesh with the other two episodes in this episode.
The animation here isn’t outright bad, but it’s got some problems the show wouldn’t let slip today. How could Squidward not know that the yeti crab looks incredibly different to Mr Krabs? The model itself looks nice, being what you’d expect from the rather bizzare yeti/crab hybrid, but I hate how inconsistent his height is. Sometimes he’s about twice Mr Krabs’ size, and other times he almost takes up an entire room, which makes the jokes where Squidward thinks it’s Mr Krabs even worse. Even the shot of the mountain the yeti hails from looks horribly plain, with next to no detail to give you the feel of a tall, snowy mountain. The episode’s art direction also suffers from mostly being set at the Krusty Krab. There are episodes that’ve been there longer, sometimes even the entire runtime, but this stands out because the subject matter is so boring. There are only so many visual gags you can make of SpongeBob cleaning in one episode before the audience gets sensory deprivation.
That leads into my biggest problem with the characters, how little they do. Sure the theme of the episode’s laziness, but even when they’re not being lazy, it doesn’t seem like they’re showing off their personality traits correctly. Squidward seems to be really dumbed down in the second act, being unable to tell that the yeti crab looks different from Mr Krabs, and dressing in garbage to prove a point. Then you have SpongeBob, and since he does the same routine so often, cleaning something for the sake of being a goody two-shoes, he eventually becomes a very boring and predictable character. He’s at his best when he cooks the Krabby Patties for the yeti in the climax. Truth be told, I can’t tell you much about the yeti or Mr Krabs. The yeti mostly stands around looking menacing until it remembers what cooking is, and Mr Krabs just forces his employees to work on what is clearly a dull, slow day.
It should be clear by now why I dislike this episode. To be fair, it’s hard to make an episode about chores interesting, but there should be more to it than one character sitting around and the other doing chore after chore. Sure that’s a relatable workplace situation, but the episode offers no variation of it aside from a haphazard yeti plot that makes no sense. I’m rather glad this is generally considered the penultimate Post-Movie episode, and not the first of a new era, because it’d be unable to win over many new fans.
Final Verdict: Bad 4/10 (not worth your time)
Are You Happy Now? < Yeti Krabs < A SquarePants Family Vacation
Question of the Day: Are there any Season 9a episodes you dislike aside from the big 3?
I really hope you don’t get fired up over tomorrow’s episode.
:sbthumbs:
Original Airdate: March 29 2015*
Episode 359 in standard order, Episode 360 in airing order
*copyrighted 2013
Plot: Mr Krabs attempts to scare Squidward into doing more work by telling him about a yeti
Written by Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas and Mr Lawrence
[titlecard]188B[/titlecard]
Title Card Music: Agitation Bridge 2
Across 2014 and early 2015, only 3 new SpongeBob episodes aired- It Came from Goo Lagoon, Kenny the Cat, and today’s episode. Even then, they’d premiered earlier in foreign countries. There was a year-long gap between the last few drips of Season 9a, and the renaissance of the series with 9b, with this episode filling the gap. It’s technically the first Post-Sequel episode, airing on TV after the release of Sponge Out of Water, but imagine being a kid in 2015, now hooked on SpongeBob after the new movie won you over, and this was your first new episode. You can tell I don’t like talking about this episode, as I’ve neglected to actually say anything about it so far, and that’s because it’s so boring.
The main crux of the story is Mr Krabs being upset with Squidward’s laziness, trying to get him to do work, and SpongeBob doing the work instead. That’s all I can really say about the first third of it. Sure there’s some variation in the chores SpongeBob does, but it’s not enough for me to take interest in the episode, as a casual viewer. Then Mr Krabs tries to scare Squidward by telling him a yeti crab will eat him if he’s being too lazy. How old does Krabs think Squidward is? Sure he’s run out of ways to motivate Squidward to do his job, but it’s a stretch for me to believe that Mr Krabs would tell Squidward a scary story for 3 year olds and expect him to believe it. The story itself barely makes any sense. This yeti crab can smell laziness, and eats the source. Okay, what does laziness smell like, and why does the yeti crab only eat lazy workers? I know asking questions about what’s clearly a terrible scare tactic isn’t supposed to be meaningul, but these are the sort of questions Squidward should be asking.
Mr Krabs leaves his employees, and by what the French Narrator calls “sheer coincidence”, the yeti crab actually exists and goes to the Krusty Krab due to its nice smell. He goes in, roars a couple times, and gets different reactions out of SpongeBob and Squidward. While SpongeBob does every chore he possibly can to prevent being eaten, even the ones that don’t make sense, Squidward thinks the yeti’s just Mr Krabs putting on a costume, despite its very different build and being much taller than Krabs. After being annoyed by the yeti for a while, Squidward grabs some stuff from the dumpster outside to dress up like a yeti to prove he can dress like one too. At this point, it just seems like the plot gets too wacky. You’ve gone from virtually nothing happening, to Squidward wearing a yeti costume attacking a yeti while SpongeBob’s doing chores. What is tonal consistency?
Once Mr Krabs comes back and Squidward’s proven wrong, there’s a jump-cut to the yeti crab roasting them all on the kitchen grill. I don’t get how the yeti crab only now gets the opportunity to roast them, especially after the strongest Krusty Krewmember’s entered the scene. Before being roasted however, SpongeBob discovers the yeti’s hungry and feeds him some Krabby Patties. Plotholes about the reveal and why the yeti would even cross the ocean for burgers that weren’t even cooking aside, I like the sequence of SpongeBob cooking the patties. It almost feels like part of a SpongeBob episode. Unfortunately, once the yeti leaves, it seems like nobody’s learned their lessons- Squidward’s still lazy and SpongeBob’s still doing Squidward’s dirty work. It feels like one of the most aimless stories in the entire series.
Now to say what my favourite jokes are, which is very hard given just how bland most of them are. I had to dig through the episode’s script to see which lines I could find funny, because the visual gags get annoying after a while, and I could only find a few which were barely impressionable. The best joke has to be Squidward not caring at the very start of the episode, even as his job’s threatened, but the joke wears thin after being dragged out for 3 minutes. The worst joke, and one of the only other jokes I could mine from the episode, is when we see the yeti’s stomach wanting to be let out after so long without food. It’s a strange, gross idea that doesn’t mesh with the other two episodes in this episode.
The animation here isn’t outright bad, but it’s got some problems the show wouldn’t let slip today. How could Squidward not know that the yeti crab looks incredibly different to Mr Krabs? The model itself looks nice, being what you’d expect from the rather bizzare yeti/crab hybrid, but I hate how inconsistent his height is. Sometimes he’s about twice Mr Krabs’ size, and other times he almost takes up an entire room, which makes the jokes where Squidward thinks it’s Mr Krabs even worse. Even the shot of the mountain the yeti hails from looks horribly plain, with next to no detail to give you the feel of a tall, snowy mountain. The episode’s art direction also suffers from mostly being set at the Krusty Krab. There are episodes that’ve been there longer, sometimes even the entire runtime, but this stands out because the subject matter is so boring. There are only so many visual gags you can make of SpongeBob cleaning in one episode before the audience gets sensory deprivation.
That leads into my biggest problem with the characters, how little they do. Sure the theme of the episode’s laziness, but even when they’re not being lazy, it doesn’t seem like they’re showing off their personality traits correctly. Squidward seems to be really dumbed down in the second act, being unable to tell that the yeti crab looks different from Mr Krabs, and dressing in garbage to prove a point. Then you have SpongeBob, and since he does the same routine so often, cleaning something for the sake of being a goody two-shoes, he eventually becomes a very boring and predictable character. He’s at his best when he cooks the Krabby Patties for the yeti in the climax. Truth be told, I can’t tell you much about the yeti or Mr Krabs. The yeti mostly stands around looking menacing until it remembers what cooking is, and Mr Krabs just forces his employees to work on what is clearly a dull, slow day.
It should be clear by now why I dislike this episode. To be fair, it’s hard to make an episode about chores interesting, but there should be more to it than one character sitting around and the other doing chore after chore. Sure that’s a relatable workplace situation, but the episode offers no variation of it aside from a haphazard yeti plot that makes no sense. I’m rather glad this is generally considered the penultimate Post-Movie episode, and not the first of a new era, because it’d be unable to win over many new fans.
Final Verdict: Bad 4/10 (not worth your time)
Are You Happy Now? < Yeti Krabs < A SquarePants Family Vacation
Question of the Day: Are there any Season 9a episodes you dislike aside from the big 3?
I really hope you don’t get fired up over tomorrow’s episode.
:sbthumbs:
