DCOM Month 2: The Cheetah Girls

The story of how 4 Cheetahs lead to Camp, High School, and boy controlling apps.

Hello, Spongey here, and welcome to the finale of DCOM Month 2!

My new schedule has prevented this from being an action packed month, but we’ve had some fun this month. Although we oddly enough didn’t get a really really good one last month. Tiger Cruise was decent but not really my kind of thing.

Still, it’s been interesting. And really, I can think of no other way to close out this month than with the one that started it all!

See, 2006’s High School Musical is credit as the start of the Modern Era of DCOM’s, but in reality this one got the ball rolling. 2003 is when we got introduced to That’s so Raven and this film, both products started Disney Channel’s trend of pushing pop stars with the help of Sitcoms and movies.

The beginning of the end, if you will.

It’s safe to this film is pretty darn legendary. Of course there were plenty of normal DCOM’s between 2003 and 2006 with no stars of anything. Which is why most people consider HSM to true start of the downfall.

But that wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for this one. And guess what? I actually haven’t seen it yet! Yeah, you think I would have seen it, but nope. I just haven’t gotten around to watching the whole thing in one sitting.

My brother has seen all 3 of them, so there is that. He did like them too much, if you’re wondering. I’ve been curious to see “good” this epic film is, so today we shall find out. Apparently it was based on a book series, which I did not known until just now, looking it up.

The director and writer have not done anything interesting, and didn’t come back for the sequels so we can move on to the actual movie. Is this legendary, historical film any good?

…Actually the better question, will I like it? Let’s see!

This, is The Cheetah Girls

The movie opens with our titular 4 girls singing. Well, they aren’t beating around the bush on this, are they? When the song ends, it turns out they singing it at some kids birthday party, and it doesn’t end well. They feel they aren’t ready for some upcoming talent show.

These girls are Bubbles, Cuchie, Do, and Aqua. These are nicknames, thank god. Bubbles is played by raven Symone and she’s the only person I really know in this movie. Well, I kind of know Sabrina Bryan cuz she a couple other Disney things, and she got top billing in Mostly Ghostly 1 despite only having a cameo.

They talk like Disney Channel teens for a bit, and after some time is wasted, Raven goes home to her Mom. Raven tells her about the whole talent show thing and how the winner gets time in a recording studio where they can record a demo. Talent show winners at this school tend to get notice so this is a big deal, I guess.

Do goes to her home where we get we find out she is of Spanish descent and yep, that means stereotypes and some annoying chatter from her family members. Hey, that’s just how they are shown in movies like this, I know this isn’t the deal in real life, I’m not racist, nor is the movie…it’s just stupid. More time is wasted there (her scene added up to nothing, really) and we cut to the next day at school.

This is a good time to mention that even by the standards of a movie like this, the girls chatter is kind of annoying and wastes quite of a time. I’m not sure how it could have been fixed, but it’s a minor issue so for. It is annoying in a fun to mock way, at least. Time is wasted at school, and we get them auditioning for the talent show, which means another song.

They make it in ….but not before the teacher joins in with some singing for a bit. Uh…okay. This isn’t a HSM style a musical, by the way. I…heard one of the sequels is tough, but we’ll get there. And by some truly insane stroke of luck, big-time producer named Jackal Johnson shows up. He went to this school once and I guess he wanted to visit his old teacher. Flimsy excuse aside, this is incredibly convenient. This is the stuff they make fun of now!

He’s looking for the next big thing and of course he wants The Cheetah Girls. Raven’s Mom shows up and she doesn’t like this idea, for some reason. Their dreams are crushed for the time being. I guess the writers didn’t’ want to start up the plot too quickly. Then again I doubt we’re gonna find out more about the girls than we already know:

One is Raven and acts exactly like all her other characters, one is sassy and white, one is sassy and Spanish, and one is black. That’s about it. Later, Raven argues with her home about this and Mom still says no. She uses that whole “realism” thing as an “excuse” for why they can’t do this. Dad convinces her to change her mind, and she does and says Raven can this.

Well, that was pointless.

After more time is wasted, they visit the prouder guy and boring story short, they sign a contract and blah blah blah. From this scene, they’ve made it obvious where this is going: The girls are going to let fame go to their heads, argue a lot, break up, make up, yada yada. It’s a time honored cliché so it’s not really this film’s fault but…still.

The producer tells them to go home and sing a little demo for him and immediately Raven starts acting all Diva-ish at school and the other girls are not happy. Wow, that quick. This should happen after their semi famous, not after one meeting!

Raven continues to act like a bitch and she starts being especially bad to Do who quits on the spot. Shouldn’t this happen near the 3rd act, not 44 minutes in? Yeah, poor pacing is a trend this month. It seems like time is wasted in the next few minutes, but it turns out to be semi important as Do visits the white one (‘m already forgetting their names) who lives in a crappy run down place. They talk and she starts crying and-

“My real Mom didn’t want me, I’m a foster child and live with ten other kids!”

…Now that is some bad exposition. It’s not even worth the Modern Spongebob reference.

It’s the most character depth we’ve seen so far, and on its own it’s nice but it fails because it’s so out of nowhere, and has no lead in at all. It’s disconnected with the plot currently going on.

Later Do visits Raven who shows her a CD cover she made, which features Raven very prominently, Of course. As a side note, Raven is the most prominent on most of the marketing materiel for the movie.

“I did write the songs”

Her bitchy-ness is both amusing and annoying in this. Naturally, Do gets mad and she tells Raven about the white one’s whole deal. They calm down and Raven assures her it’ll be fine.

The next day they visit the producer who wants them to change their image for marketing reasons. Oh look he’s sleazy and it’s all too good to be true. What a shock.

Also, mock over marketing while you can, cuz after this movie becomes a hit you’re gonna be guilty of all the same stuff!

They go on anyway and we get another song. All of these are about you’d expect so that’s why I’m not offering my thoughts on them. They’re all alight, I guess. After the song, the producer shows them the song they want them to sing which is autotuned crap. …Well, the song they just did wasn’t overly auto-tuned so I can’t get mad here.

Raven finally wises up and tells him they won’t do this. …But the others want to stay. They are seriously just doing this to mad at Raven, cuz she’s very much on the same page now. But nope, we still need conflict.

“He knows the business, I think we should consider it”

Shouldn’t Raven the one wanting to play into this crap and the others say it’s not the right? You’ve had Raven being like the kind person who would do that but now you just flip flop for no reason?

“It’s not your song so you wanna walk”

They are trying to make this feel in character, but it really just isn’t. Anyone with half a brain would see this guy as a sleazy douchebag with his plans being overly marketed crap, but for the sake being terrible to Raven the gotta side with him.

This is the worst time to have them call out raven. You know, when she’s actually right! With that, Raven leaves and the others take the deal. The producer says they will find a new singer and make Do the lead.

After a sad montage, Do goes home only to get chewed out by her Mom for running out her credit card. Then suddenly Do just kind of starts crying about some stuff I’m not following. I’m pretty sure it involves forced exposition, just like with the white one.

I feel so racist when I don’t know anyone’s name. Raven goes to the school to sulk via singing and some guy hears it and likes it.

After they talk a bit, we cut to the next day as Raven is walking her dog. The dog gets loose and falls down a hole. Wow, they went for the dog conflict? That’s how you know they didn’t know how to write a proper story like this.

Then again, we need something to bring the girls together and it breaks from cliché a bit and makes sense…so why did I complain?

Also, the dog’s name is Toto and when the news reports this…

“Toto is not in Kansas anymore”
…
No. Also, slow news day.

Naturally, this is going on at the same time as the talent show. The other girls show up to help and the people over at school show up as well, having caught wind of this.

Man, I wasn’t aware some random dog getting trapped in a whole was such a big deal they’ll stop a talent show for one. Granted, the power went out but it came back on right before they get the news, so there.

Jokes aside, they do a nice job of making this decently suspenseful, I suppose. But it does get a little silly when the girls start signing to make the dog come out. It’s supposed to sweet but it’s just…silly.

The dog is saved and everything’s happy. Well, it actually gets a little sad again until Raven starts signing. This time for pretty much no reason other than to have a “Sweet” scene where the girls join in. With that, it cuts to them at the talent show, finally banding together as one.

I think I’m okay with how this happened. I’d usually bitch that this randomly got resolved weakly, but the dog thing is a…strong enough set piece to make it work, I guess. Also, Jackal is watching this somehow and one of lackeys says he blew it. Cute, he’ll be back for a fiery vengeance in Cheetah Girls 2: Return of the Jedi.

With that, the girls are all friends again and of course they win the talent show. They celebrate and yep, it’s where the credits roll. I’m getting shock of bitching about abrupt endings, and since I’ve seen worse, even this month, I’ll keep my mouth shut.

I will say that the credits are the shortest I’ve seen in a long time, which is great.

Final Thoughts:

Well, that was both exactly what I expected, and different at the same time. I figured it would have that story with the friends forming a band, getting famous thanks to a producer, and appointed leader becoming a bitch. I also figured it would all that crap I know DCOM’s for, and I would greatly enjoy it no matter how it is.

That only…half happened. It has that story but it somehow gets in the wrong in the smallest ways. I’ve harped on how Raven randomly becomes a bitch out of nowhere before they even strike a deal, and how the big moment where the friends strike back is in a moment that makes them seem out of character.

They somehow got the most basic story in the world wrong, but they also strike the right notes. We got the story about fame in here with a nice little message and puts it above some other DCOM’s in that aspect. This movie really is an even mix of getting things right and getting things wrong.

Allow me to answer your first question: I did kind of enjoy it. I can snark on the dumb moments like I usually do, no problem there. However, I don’t have as much fun as I do with other films. The over the top insanity shown in stuff such as High School Musical, Camp Rock 2, and even Princess Protection Program managed to entertain me just a bit more on that guilty pleasure level.

I think it’s because this movie is sort of trapped between the classic era and the modern era. It’s the small and personal feeling of a Pre 2003 DCOM while also having the tween-y feeling of a modern DCOM. Thus, it doesn’t quite go all the well and isn’t as fun.

Don’t worry, I can get through it so don’t think I’m saying something like HSM is better or anything. While this screw up its structure more than that one, it has less of the weird stuff people harp on.

The story, like I said, gets some things wrong and is also insanely cliché. I can forgive the latter but the former does harm it a bit in some areas.

The characters are about what you would expect. The only important characters who ever do anything are the titular girls, and only Raven and Do seem to get any sort of development, as their friendship is highlighted the most.

Despite the whole bitch thing, Raven does get the better development and I buy that she learned her lesson. The others just fill their archetypes though, and don’t really stick out.

The mom is the typical Mom, and the producer isn’t nearly as fun as he should have been. They work okay in some parts, but maybe more development was needed. Also, in the end their chatter wasn’t a huge problem and that is where the more enjoyable element comes in.

Also, the acting is fine, I suppose. They at least try and hey, Raven’s got talent at least.

As a whole, it set the stage for Modern DCOM’s as much as I expected to. It’s less enjoyable than osme others, but that’s due to the reason I gave above. It’s more flawed than I figured it would be, but it has its heart in the right place and is a decent one to make fun on.

It’s almost like Camp Rock where it was worse than I thought it would be, but this one actually has a semi competent despite its flaws.

It’s alright, by my guilty pleasure standards. But I hope the sequels are “Better”.

Grade: C+

And that ends DCOM month 2! Will there be another one? Most likely not, but if you want one, I’ll see what I can do. It was a fun ride even if we didn’t exactly get a Smart House this time around.

Next time, we go back to normal by almost kind of wrapping up Tinkerbell!

See ya.

DCOM Month 2: Tiger Cruise

After this, I’ll never mock the use of you know what in Color of Friendship again..

Hello, Spongey here. And welcome to DCOM Month 2!

I actually don’t have much to say about this before we go in. The main reason I wanted to watch it will be saved for when it comes up in the film.
It’s one of those fairly obscure ones you have never heard of. But here’s the thing: This came out in 2004. With one or two exceptions, most of the DCOM’s that came out after 2003 or so are well known, at least more so than Jumping Ship or something like that.

So why the heck is so obscure? Why did Disney bury? You’ll find out soon enough. I had never heard of until I looked at the all the DCOM’s on Wikipedia way back when I did the first DCOM month. When I read the summary, I was…interesting.

So today, I’ll see how it is. Another reason why it’s odd that it’s obscure that it actually has well known actors in it, but we’ll get to them later. The writers have done nothing of note, but the director did, get this, Halloween town!

Again, how is this obscure?!

Well, it’s time to find out, isn’t it?

This, is Tiger Cruise

The movie opens in the home of our main character, Maddie, played by Hayden Panettiere. She was not an adult when she filmed this, so I can’t do the gag. …Wait, I did it for The Scream Team even though Kat was young, so screw it.

Anyway, told you there were well known people in this.

“Why can’t I go on the Tiger Cruise?”

Two movies in a row with title drops in the first two minutes? It must be my lucky month!

Anyway, her sister said that. That sister is played by a young Jennete McCrudy. Not as well-known as some others, but most of you known her. A nick start started out on Disney Channel, isn’t that odd.

Maddie is going to visit her Navy Commander father. Her Mom says she usually isn’t interested in her Dad’s whole deal but I suppose we’ll find out why she’s going later. Anyway, the Tiger Cruise is a week-long cruise for military families and their friends aboard his aircraft carrier.

We have a montage of some of the kids Maddie will meet later, including a boy, a black guy, and a girl. They better not be hugely stereotypical. We then get a scene of a plane so the chick and Maddie can meet and bond a bit. The chick is into navy type stuff, so she gives us info dumps to show what she’s like.

They arrive at the cruise, and I’d like to mention that like The Color Friendship this takes place in an earlier year. I won’t reveal the year cuz…I don’t want the address elephant in the room until it’s a good time to do so.

She meets up with her Dad, played by Bill Pullman. Not much happens so let’s cut to our third lunchroom scene this month! Okay, it’s a “mess deck” but it’s the same thing. We find out that the chick’s name is Tina and she’s a bit of an artistic type. After some of that, Maddie and Tina visit her Dad. They fail to make small talk and she leaves to do some stuff. They go outside where it is insanely windy and the black guy randomly pops up and falls into the water, in the most hilariously fake way possible.

Actually he lands on a net and this scene was pointless.

Maddie talks to Dad again and she drops this bomb.

“When are you coming home for good?”

Ah, it’s this kind of story, eh? We’ll see how it goes. She’s not happy that she’s had to move a lot, and all the other problems this kind of thing comes with.

This scene get fairly intense with her going on, which makes me forget this boils down to the whole workaholic stuff. But hey, he’s got a good reason to be doing what he’s doing…but I can kind of see where she’s coming from. So ah well.

He says soon he’ll be home for “a while” but that doesn’t make up for anything. The over-dramatic aspect works a lot better here than in our previous film but it’s still perhaps a bit much. Maybe. When they are done talking, we cut to the next day as she asks him if and she and Tina can be up on the flight deck during the air show, or something like that.

He says no because it’s dangerous. They are going to go there anyway, aren’t they? Sure enough, the black guy shows them the way there. Sure enough, they get caught and they are called out on it. Didn’t we go through back in Zenon?

Dad gets all angry and stuff and tells her to start thinking about her action. The black guy’s…brother I think says the same stuff. Maddie eventually apologizes to Dad and he tells her that she was kind of right. He’s coming home for good. They hug it out and it’s all good. Then we cut to the next day.

…and now it’s time to address the elephant in the room. Remember how I said this takes place in a certain year? Well, if you were to watch the movie you’d figure out what the film is truly about at the start, but I’ve been hiding it until this very moment.

What is the date the next scene, and likely the rest of this film will take place on? Well, here it is, taken straight from the film, unedited:

*9111*
…
Yeah. Uh…I don’t know what to say here. I just…wow. When I first heard about this, I couldn’t believe it. Allow me to say it in order to let it sink in.

This is a Disney Channel Movie about 9/11.

…Wow. I suppose I should make one thing clear: I don’t really have a problem with them doing this. Up to this point, the film has been mostly serious and there has been nothing offensive that could undercut this. There’s some cliché stuff but nothing overly DCOM-y.

It’s that…it’s a DCOM with 9/11 in it! Regardless of how it’s handled it’s just…wow! That’s why they never air this. But I’m shocked no one has found out about it and given it a cult following. Trust me, people would be interested to find out about this.

I’m just shocked that this exists. Is there a risen to drag 9/11 into it? Hmm…not sure, since for all I know that’s the only time period this whole Tiger Cruise thing could work with. If that’s not the case, then I don’t see the point on a narrative level.

Really, I think we just move on and see how they handle it. I’ll just give you a minute to get over the shock of it all …..You done?

Okay, let’s move on.

So where was i? Oh yeah, we cut to the day as…the event happens and our pals over here are informed about it. Everyone is told to stay calm and all that good stuff. The entire sequence is done with the respect it deserves and it’s all fairly dramatic.

I just wanted to be sure you know that since it’s pretty important.

There really isn’t a lot to say at this point since most if it people running around and dealing with the situation. Not a ton to comment on, really. The next few minutes are more or less the same as Maddie helps make sure the other kids are kept calm through this situation. She talks to the black guy who reveal that he had friends in New York who have parents that live right in those buildings.

…Ouch. Wait, only does he get any sort of depth in the slightest? Is it disrespectful for me to say anything bad at a moment like this? After all that, Dad tells Maddie he’s not going to be coming for obvious reasons. She’s worried about him for those some obvious reasons, but a speech calms her down.
After some minor scenes, at Maddie’s suggestion, the passengers hold up a giant American flag on the deck of Tiger Cruise. Because…it only took a few days for us to get into the AMERICA FUCK YEAH phase that we apparently needed after the events.

Oh crap, was that an insensitive joke? I’m not sure. Seriously, I have no idea if making a joke like that is okay given this a DCOM about the events, made after The Cheetah Girls was a thing. This is followed by Dad giving a rousing speech telling everyone that they’ve done well. With that, the cruise is pretty over as we get a scene full of goodbyes.

“Everything’s different now”

Yeah, now cartoon episodes will get banned for dumb reasons!

Maddie says she’s cool with Dad being away because now she understands why he does what he does. Wait, we’ve got a story like this where the kid realizes the Dad doing work is good and starts to respect that? Holy crap, what are the odds?!

And it only took 9/11 to do it! ….Wait..

Anyway, she salutes Dad as he goes back to his duties and the movie ends. Yeah, even a 9/11 DCOM needs an abrupt ending. It had a nice feeling with the end, but of course it made me realize the two biggest supporting characters didn’t do a whole lot.

Either way, the movie was…kind of what I expected. Let’s move on.

Final Thoughts:

Let’s forget the…thing for a moment, and just pretend this is a normal movie. I will look at it on a purely narrative level. It’s alright. It hits on a lot of clichés you may expect see in something like this, and that can be hit miss. Sometimes it’s just the stuff you see before, while at other times they put more drama into it, or even a nice spin on it.

The story is nothing too new but it works at times. If you just wrote it out it does fairly cliché and it really all depends on the execution and it’s a nice execution. At times the drama sinks in pretty well and the actors are all mostly fine, which is important for a movie like this.

It’s one of things that mostly works better when you watch then when you read/hear about it. As far as the characters go, only two matter, and they are alright. They fit it into their archetypes but the writing can help make them a bit more interesting sometimes.

There isn’t a ton to them but they are okay. My problem is with the use of Tina and the black guy. Tina seems like she’ll have a lot going on but she mostly doesn’t a ton and she just gets a minor moment at the end. That’s really is. She’s there enough I suppose and it’s not really about her but she could have been used better.

The black guy…doesn’t even get a name that I caught (Did David Lubar write this) and doesn’t have much depth until he ties into the 9/11 stuff. Ah well, as at least the important characters aren’t bad.

I am mixed on the film as a whole though, and it’s mostly due to the drama. I’m not sure how I feel about how insanely over dramatic it can be at times. It works better than our last film, because the story is more interesting. It can help make for some nicely emotional scenes, and with the subject matter it makes sense, but man can it go overboard at times.

I’ve seen worse in this regard, but it can be a bit much. I’m not really sure how to put it, honestly. It’s odd yet it works sometimes.

Now I got to talk about the 9/11 aspect. They treat it with respect and it’s all done well. My point is that if this was a normal movie, or you had no idea it was a DCOM…you may like it it less. This could be seen as another preachy movie where 9/11 is in it because reasons. It has a lot more effort put into than other films like that but there’s no doubt that the DCOM aspect is what makes it notable.

At least the characters are now in the middle of the event, they are just effect by it. I really no problem with 9/11 being here, or anything like that. I’m not just not sure how I can feel about how the drama is executed, due to the event’s inclusion.

I guess I’ll leave that up to you. Overall, it may be flawed but it some nice emotional moments and a decent ending to the main arc. It’s worth watching but oddly enough, there are more complex and emotional DCOM’s out there, without needing to tie in real life.

Grade: B

So we finish off DCOM Month 2 next time. And really, only one possible movie could fit.

Yep, it’s finally time for this one.
See ya.

Top 11 Spongebob Episodes I Like that Everyone Hates

Hello, Spongey here.

So, I just posted my general review of Sponge out of Water, the latest SpongeBob product. In that, I confessed that feelings towards SpongeBob have changed.

I no longer blindly like Modern SpongeBob and I agree it’s not the same show, and a lot of the hated episodes are really bad. Of My original Top 4, the only one I truly hate now is Pet or Pests, but mostly cuz it the first ep I actually disliked and it has a special place in my …heart, in a bad way.

However, I do think some people can over its flaws. It’s very flawed, but it’s not totally horrible. There are sheep who think every single new episode is terrible and will reject any episode and come up with the dumbest reasons for any ep being bad.
But those people are usually YouTube commenters.

However, there are people who are too harsh on certain episodes. Even Mr. Enter and Pieguy can be a bit too harsh, though I always see where they are coming from. The latter more so but don’t tell Mr Enter that.

The wonderful thing about “Art” (if you can call SpongeBob art) is that everyone has their own opinion. Even among the harshest critics, they have episodes they don’t hate as much as others. Every single hated episode has at least one apologist, outside of the blind fan boys.

I know people how like One Coarse Meal, Little Yellow Book and Pet Sitter Pat, and I totally see why would like it, even if I…don’t. Actually, the last one is slightly overhated cuz the ending fixed my problem with A Pal for-wait, I’m getting off track.

The point is, anyone can have thoughts on any episode. However, some people treat episodes are worse than they are. Tame bad episodes such as Boat Smarts have been treated like they Face Freeze or something.

Then there the episodes that are just plain not bad that tend unpopular. Honestly, there are more Modern Episodes I like out think are good, than I think that are bad or weak. Just barely. I consider myself a somewhat fair critic when it comes to TV, and with this show, I found good in every episode, even the ones I hate.

So it’s no shock that there a lot of hated episodes I actually like. And because there are quite a few, I wanted to do a list. Yep, this is one I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Before I start this list, I have a few rulers, as well as a few thinks to clear up:

I must flat out like the episode. No filler entries that think are just alright. There are ones on here I find “Okay” but I still LIKE them, they just aren’t the best.

I’ll try to avoid Guilty Pleasure episodes, where I think they are flawed, or even bad, but I still enjoy them anyway. There are 2 you could argue are Guilty Pleasures on here, but there are things I critically like in them, in one case my reasoning is more complex. If you’re wondering my Guilty Pleasure episodes are To Love a Patty, Penny Foolish, Boating Buddies, Squid’s Visit, and Spongehenge (Sorry, Pieguy). They all deserve hate, which is why they were left off.

If you hate any of these episodes, that’s fine. I will address the main complaints I hear as much as possible, but if you feel I miss your main complaint, please let me know.

Got all that? Good

With that said, let’s drop on the deck and see which episodes hatedom’s are just nautical nonsense.

This, is the Top 11 Spongebob Episodes I like that (Mostly) everyone else hates

11. Karen 2.0

Season 8

Writers: Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas, Richard Pursel

This episode is at the bottom of the list because it’s actually not hated that much. The reception is more mixed, with some loving and some disliking it. However, I simply had to put it on the list because it still gets more hate than it deserves.

Honestly, I’m shocked some people do hate it. I know (as the Sponge himself said) we all can’t liking the same things, but this should get the praise some other Modern episodes get.

Infact if this was ranked by how much I personally liked the episodes, this would be number one. I love this episode. Allow me to explain.
See, I’ve always been interested in the Plankton/Karen dynamic. Before the movie, She was just a snarky computer but since Season 6 or so, they’ve been trying to bring more to their relationship.

“Single Cell Anniversary” was the first to more deeply explore this relationship, as Plankton shows that he does love her. Though before that, we had “Komputer Overload” where Plankton thinks Karen is the thing dragging him down, and makes some robots to replace her.
Both are those are very good and really sweet. However, there is one thing missing: Proof Karen truly loves him back. And that’s where this episode comes in.

The episode starts off right away with Plankton…replacing Karen because he thinks she isn’t that good anymore. Okay, it’s kind of a rip off of Komputer Overload, but it does enough things different that I can forgive.

In this case, it’s a direct replacement called Karen 2 who is sleeker and uh…has a better…figure. Okay, let’s move on. Karen gets angry and she leaves, turning herself off. (Or maybe Plankton did it, I can’t remember).

Mr Krabs and Spongebob find her and long story short, she gets a job at the Krusty Krab. Now, before we move on, let’s address one complaint with this episode: Karen is unlikable, and naggy.

Well, let’s think about. She’s married to a tiny man who dedicates his life to stealing a burger, and runs a restaurant that sells horrible chum, and gets no customers. He’s a total failure. Wouldn’t you be a bit naggy, too?

And for the most part, prior to this, her snarking wasn’t overly mean. Heck, her worst action is mocking his name, in PRE MOVIE episode. Now, they did have an odd time trying to mix it up with nicer moments, but she was mostly the fun kind of bitchy and Single Cell did have her liking his song. She even takes pity on him in Komputer Overload.

The only time I ever hated her was…One Coarse Meal were she’s completely insensitive to his paranoia. As if we need more reason to hate that episode.
So yeah, having us feel bad for her isn’t a bad concept, and it’s done well. Plankton is a bit jerkish but in this context, she does nothing to earn out hatred. She only nags cuz her husband has left her!

Besides most of her moping is keep mostly funny. So the biggest complaint is really not that valid to me. Karen was the naggy type before, but this one attempt to make sympathetic works because…well, you’ll see.

Eventually, Plankton storms the Krusty Krab with Karen 2 (not 2.0, like the title suggest) and long story short, Karen and Karen 2 get in a fight. Yes, Mr Krab charges money for people to watch because of course he does.

Eventually, Karen 2 squishes Plankton and Karen tries to call off the fight because he’s hurt. Karen 2 refuses and Karen kicks her shiny metal ass. Okay, that’s amazing.

“Even though you are a tiny green loser, I could never stay… … mad…at…you….

She shuts down due to lack of power, and the plot.

“Karen! Don’t you leave me, Karen. Not again.”

Her changes her batteries and she turns back on. This is way tenser than it sounds.

“What happened?

“I had a reality check, that’s what happened.”
They leave, and the episode ends with them making Squidward act like a robot, with Karen 2’s head, to make up for not making money for the fight. Squid has a good line to make up for the obligatory abuse.

I honestly this is one of the sweetest moments in the whole show, not just post movie. I mean, we’ve seen that Plankton needs her, and cares for her in the aforementioned episodes. But this episode finally shows that she ultimately loves him back.

I mean, she gets angry when Karen 2 runs him over and she kicks her ass purley because she hurt him. Then Plankton returns the favor! We’ve seen him do nice stuff for her before but the biggest was him singing a song for her. Komputer Overload just had him admitting he needs her.

Here, he goes out of his way to fix her. He even forgets the formula for once to do this! It’s awesome and it makes up for him being a bit jerky early on. This also makes up for any of Karen’s mistakes

I can see Mr Enter’s issues with Karen but doing all of this doesn’t redeem her? Ah well. If you ask me, this was my personal favorite 11 minute episode of Season 8. (They are outdone by It’s a Spongebob Christmas and Hello Bikini Bottom).

I just loved personally loved seeing them both of out of their way to help each other. It’s kind of a cap of what has been an arc for them. Think about it. She dumped in Krabby Road, Plankton learned to respect her in KO, in Single Cell he showed his love for her, and here she shows she loves him back.

And while it’s not very humor based, there are a few decent gags with Karen at the Krsuty Krab and the sweet moment works so well, I don’t care. It’s only big problem is rehashing the same formula as Komputer Overload, with replacing the Karen and learning the lesson…but it manages to take a step further as you saw.

That one had more gags but this had a better story, so I like it more. Overall, it’s a great episode that needs more love than it gets.

So yeah, we’re off to a good start with this list, but in case you aren’t mad yet, wait for my next choice. But before we go, I must mention two things: Single Cell, Komputer and this actually have one thing in common: Richard Pursel. He wrote for all 3 of them.

I…think he’s the best guy to write Karen. Except maybe Frozen Face Off (where at least Plantkon’s action and her angry make sense), she’s decent in every Richard episode she’s been in.

So yeah, keep him away from Gary and put him with Karen…if he hadn’t left with this being has 2nd to last episode. I this his was final one, but ah well.

The other thing I must bring up is the episode Move It Or Lose It, that was made and aired after it, also written by Casey and Zeus, without Richard. In a quick gag, Plankton is fully willingly to sell Karen before she gets mad about it.

…GODDAMNIT

10. House Fancy

Season 6

Writers: Aaron Springer, Dani Micheali

As everyone knows, Squidward torture is a big problem with Modern Spongebob. It wasn’t horribly bad up to this point (This episode opened Season 6) but it was a problem. You know why it’s a problem so I won’t go into it.

There were times where Squidward was okay at the end of an episode, but even Two Faces of Squidward had torture for him at the end. I felt it was time for him to win again. I mean, he hadn’t won since Band Geeks, which was Season 2!
So to open the worst Season of the show, they had him again. Yes, really. In this episode, Squidward sees Squilliam (in his first post movie appearance) on a show called House Fancy, hosted by a guy voiced by a guy known for cooking shows (wrap your head around that one).

Squidward gets jealous and tries to make his house fancy so it will be on the show. Now, before the ending it’s more on the okay side, but it’s still enjoyable. Yes, Stalker Spongebob is hinted it but it’s not too much of a problem compared to other episodes.

And while there could have been more jokes, there are enough jokes. The design of Squilliam’s house is cool and its fun to see him and the host walk around, and I love his giant Unibrow made of golden doorknobs.

Then there’s the scene where Patrick runs in to use Squidward’s bathroom and uh…drops a load. Patrick comments no one should go in there for a few weeks and…the toilet comes out, begging Squidward to its misery, and it dies.

…That is…hilarious! Yes, some people don’t like this joke, but it’s over the top, hilarious and dark! It’s so funny, in how WTF it is. It’s a bit too odd for some, but I like Spongebob that. It’s why I think I had an Accident is one of the funniest episodes of the show.

Anyway, at the end, Squidward’s house blows up thanks to Spongebob and it turns into ruins. But when the host shows up, he actually…likes it! He thinks some art piece and highly praises it. This is awesome.

It’s not nearly as awesome as the ending to Band Geeks or even Suction Cup Symphony but it’s still great. It’s so awesome to see Squid win for the first time in the post movie era. Like those others, it makes you think he’s going to lose, but he doesn’t!

Squilliam crying is a nice touch too, and Spongebob consoling him is cute too. See, he does have a good nature!

So yeah, overall this episode was not a bad star to Seas-

…Wait, there’s one more thing to talk about, isn’t there?

…Yeah, I put off talking about it just to show you that it’s possible to judge it without. But let’s talk about. If you don’t know, there’s a part where they are trying to move Squidward’s couch and they accidentally rip out his toenail, which is a bit gory and its set to Squidward screaming.

This little scene was so infamous it made a lot of people hate the episode, purely because of its inclusion. And you know what?

I think that’s silly.

Yes, it’s a bad scene and it’s really not needed…but only lasts like 30 seconds and the episode returns to normal. Now, if the episode was a typical Squid torture episode where he loses, this could big the deal breaker that makes it infamous.

But since he wins, it’s a dumb reason to hate it. I’ve heard some say it’s dull on top of it, but I disagree. There could more jokes, but it’s interesting enough, and did I mention that SQUIDWARD WINS?!

If you ask me, Squidward winning makes any episode at least bearable. It’s not a “Squidward torture porn” if he wins, by the way.

Now, there has been a chain of cartoon episodes ruined by one bad scene, that are okay otherwise. Despite me liking this episode, most of those others do bug me. Hell, even PHINEAS AND FERB is guilty of this, but that’s another story.

Family Guy has a similarly infamous episode called Peter Problems, which has a minute and half cutaway where Peter mutilates a whale. If you ask me, that one is worse because that scene is way longer…and that ep would be “Meh” without due it being dull and rehashing a bunch of other episodes.

So my point is, a small scene isn’t enough to make an episode bad. If you dislike it for being dull, that’s fine but just remember that Squidward wins.
There really isn’t much else to say. House Fancy isn’t the best episode ever, but it’s got solid gags, and a great ending. The toenail holds it back slightly but only cuz it’s just pointless, you know?

If you hate the toenail scene, that’s fine, just don’t call the whole episode bad because of it. That’s really all I got to say.

House Fancy: Who knew a Toenail could cause so much trouble?

9. InSPONGiac

Season 8

Writers: Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas, Mr Lawerence

Remember how I said there are two arguable guilty pleasures on this list? This is one of them. This is one where the hate is small but there. The two big reasons, I feel are valid enough but I do not agree.

When Spongebob adds one percent too much mustard to the Krabby Patties, Mt Krabs thinks he hasn’t been getting enough sleep and says he’s insomniac. He tells Spongebob to get some sleep, but of course he has trouble sleepy. Hilarity ensues.

The first reason people dislike this one is Mr Krabs. Yeah, he’s good ol’ Krappy Krab (Get it? It’s my version of Patprick…yeah…) but…come on guys, all he does is judge Spongebob a tad too harshly. That’s not good, but this crab done tons of horrible things from abusing a snail to driving someone to suicide.

This is small stuff. Not to mention he’s in the episode for like 1 minute so the plot can get started. Now for the other reason people don’t like it: Patrick.

Is he a prick in this episode? Let’s try out PieGuyRulz’ (@) Patrick Jerk test!

JUSTIFICATION:

SpongeBob goes to Patrick for help, so he pulls out a bedtime story. However, it turns out to be called “The Land of Perpetual excitement” cuz Pat thought he needed a get OUT of bed story. So he switches to a lullaby from his childhood…which turns out to be about being active.

Clearly it didn’t register with Patrick, amirite?

Anyway, does he justification? ….Yes! I mean, he genuinely thinks this is good for Spongebob, because he honestly thought he needed to wake up. Same goes for the lullaby, he just got songs mixed up.

His stupidity feels genuine, and there’s a good reason for it. Case closed.

HUMOR:

Is it funny?

…Yes. I honestly laughed at both punchlines. I love the land of excitement gag. I know humor is subjective, but I think it’s funny. It may be different from others, but at least there’s an actual joke here.

DOES IT ADD OR SUBTRACT FROM THE PLOT?:

…Both, actually. It adds to Spongebob’s troubles in a comedic way, much like Wet Painters…but it does go on a bit too long. He sings the active song for like half a minute. What starts as good Patrick stud pity gets a tad annoying. If that’s your problem, fine, but I don’t think Patrick is a prick here.
Actually, this reminds me of another episode. Spongebob goes to Patrick for help and he tells him a story that doesn’t help at all…I can’t put my finger on it.

“Once there was an Ugly Barnacle. He was so ugly that everyone died. The End”

….Yeah, now I remember. People justify that but this is him being a prick?

Anyway, onto why I like it. Besides some of the amusing jokes at the start, the reason I like it is the climax. Spongebob start hallucinating and we get a really tripping scene of various weird scenes attacking him.

This scene is awesome. The animation is really nice, it’s very creative, and it’s a lot of fun to watch. I love myself some trippy scenes (which is why I like Squidward in Clarinetland as well) and this is a good example of that.

My only problem is that it takes a little bit too long to get to this point, but it’s well worth it. Everything after that is alright too, as predictable as it is. The ending gags is kind of amusing.

The main reason this is low on the list is that I like it more for the trippy scene than the actual writing. As far as episodes go, it’s more on the average scale with a weak plot. It’s basically a mashup of Night Light, and Squidward in Clarinetland.

But despite that, it’s a fun enough episode and half guilty pleasure. Half because there’s nothing I object too besides Mr. Krabs and the familiar plot. This is isn’t even lower, because I really wanted to discuss Karen 2.0 (which is actually paired with this one) and House Fancy isn’t hated on as much besides the toenail scene.

However, I do feel some of the criticisms aren’t 100 percent valid, and people who loved Squidward in Clarientland should dig this. It’s a reasonably fun episode that has an awesome trippy scene to make up for its flaws.

There isn’t much else to say yet again, so let’s move on cuz the next one gives me slightly more to discuss…

8. The Cent pf Money

Season 7

Writers: Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas, Dani Michaeli

This one is interesting, because this one has almost as much love as hate. And with this one, I can honestly see why. It depends if you want to focus more on the good or the bad.

In this episode, Mr. Krabs finds out that Gary can magnetically attract Money. Being Mr Krabs, he uses this for his own gang while he tries to make sure Spongebob is none the wiser.

Yeah, you can see why some people hate. It combines elements of the two worst Season 7 episodes: Mr. Krabs being awful and Gary abuse. And for the most part, there aren’t a ton of jokes besides that.

So why do I like it? Because of the ending. I’ll just skip to it to make this quick. Mr. Krabs makes his way to arcade which is of course full of people with quarters. Spongebob figures out where he is, with the help of a cameo from the bowl of nails guy from No Weenies Allowed.

Spongebob gets there, and…catches him in the act.

“Don’t you lie to me! I know all about you using Gary to steal money! “

“I would never steal. You have to quit making up stories, boy-yo “

“ I’M NOT MAKING UP ANYTHING. I know all about you’re little scheme! You’re the one making up stories!”

Then Gary’s money attracting powers causes a whole flood of quarters to crush Mr. Krabs and put him in the hospital. They find out Gary ate a magnet and that’s how he got those powers.

The episode ends with Mr. Krabs having to pay for his bill with all the money he stole. I’m gonna say it: This is the most satisfying ending to any episode EVER.

Or at least of Season 7, at least.

We’ve had Mr. Krabs be punished for bad things in the Modern Era (Slumber Party, No Hat For Pat, Patty Caper) but it’s nothing huge and in the latter’s case what he does is so bad it made the episode mixed for me. And In Season 7, He was kind of mixed

He was great in Growth Spout and The Masterpiece, and he got proper comeuppance in Curse of the Hex, and Wreck of the Mona Loa. He was about average in Kracked Krabs, but….he was horrible in One Coarse Meal. That one was for me what Choir Boys was for Pieguy. And OCM one didn’t end with a small moment redeeming him.

And as much as his comeuppance was in those eps, it didn’t feel like enough. So it was just amazing for it to happen here. Yes, he got derailed more than in those episodes-

“If I was rich, I wouldn’t have to hire the likes of you!”

-but the comeuppance goes above and beyond to make up for it. It is just amazing to see Spongebob finally realized how horrible Mr. Krabs is and stand up to him! Everything else is just icing on the cake.

It was bad that I was really happy to see someone get hurt? Well, I think that may have been the point since whenever someone does something bad and earns comeuppance, you are supposed to be happy that they get what they deserve.

Is it bad that he was driven to this point to start with? Sure, but in this context, I’m okay with. Actually, this reminds of two pre movie episodes: Jellyfish Hunter and Krabby Land.

In those episodes, Mr. Krabs did some pretty bad stuff, Spongebob called him out, and he got comeuppance Now I get why those aren’t hated as much as this one. Krabby Land is getting more criticism lately for the same reason as Cent of Money, and people like Jellyfish Hunter because there’s a lot of Comedy to make up for it, and the My Leg guy sings.

That improves any episode.

Krabby Land didn’t get hate for a while for the same reason. Cent of Money doesn’t have that much humor to distract you and what he does seems worse. Yeah, enslaving Jellyfish is better than abusing one animal. Go figure.

Either way, I do think the lack of Comedy is what holds this episode back. There are a few gags but it’s mostly just Mr. Krabs abusing Gary for most of it. Before the ending, I was kind of “Eh”, praying this wouldn’t be A Pal for Gary 2.

However, the ending is so awesome, I can say I like the episode. And I’ve seen a few more times, and the rest of it became a bit more tolerable once I knew what was gonna happen. And the gags that are there do work, and I loved the cameo.

Season 7 sure did have a lot of continuity references, didn’t it? Heck, this episode’s sister ep, had a cameo from Grisslepuss from Banned in Bikini Bottom.

This one is a bit lower due to its flaws, but the ending alone just makes me like it enough for it to be higher than some others. Of all the episodes on this list, the hate is the most understandable for this one.

However, I think some should focus on the good here rather than the bad. Despite its flaws, it has one of the most satisfying endings of a Modern Spongebob episode ever.

Yeah, I don’t have much else to say. I can why people focus on the bad parts, but for me, the ending alone makes it a passable episode.

7. Earworm

Season 7

Writers: Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas, Derek Iversen

Here’s an interesting one, because the way its structured makes it divisive by default. The reception happens to slide a bit more into the negative side.

In this episode, Spongebob gets a pop song stuck in his head, and drives himself crazy trying to get it out. As it turns out, a literal Earworm has lodged itself into his head and hilarity ensues.

Since I’m listening to music I type this, and I’ve done a huge top 40 song list, you can tell I listen to a lot of music. Thus, I’ve had songs stuck in head. I listen to music so much I don’t even get just one stuck in my head anymore. My brain is like an endless playlist at this point.

So when I first heard about this, I thought it sounded awesome. And while it’s not super good, I still kind of enjoy it. This episode is an amusing and releatble parody of catch songs in general.

Naturally everyone has gotten a song stuck in their head, so the way it’s done here is relatable and honestly funny. My favorite part is obviously the song itself. They’ve spoofed catchy songs in other shows, but this one …well just look at some of these lyrics:

The song that you ran from is back again!
You wonder if the madness will ever end.
Trying to stop it is futile.
So just listen now to my musical doodle.

Man that sounds almost sinister. Not only are the lyrics clever, the song itself is very catchy. It kind of has to be, but seriously, even if your hate the song, it’ll get lodged in your brain. That’s kind of the point.

As a side note, the original radio version of the song we here is performed by Eban Schletter, who makes most of the songs for the show. So you have him to blame/thank for a lot of the amazing songs in the show.

He also performed the all-time classic “I wrote this” from Sing a Song of Patrick. Musical Doodle isn’t as good as that masterpiece but it’s still good.

As for why some people hate this one…well most of it is Spongebob annoying people with the song and going crazy from it. The song plays a lot in the episode and Spongebob annoys people in universe with it. As you can guess, a lot of people find the episode annoying and repetitive, at least until the 3rd act where the others try to get the song out with lesser songs.

And…yeah, that can get a bit annoying time, and it what holds the episode back. However, I can look past it cuz there are fun gags with the song, and SB going crazy is quite fun to watch. I also like their attempts to get the song out, and like I said, the song itself is very clever.

It’s got some decent escalation as well, since SB goes from just listening to it to completely freaking out thanks to it. The premise of it being an actual Earworm is clever, if a bit obvious, as well.

If you’re wondering, Squidward is actually the one to get the worm out, with his Clarinet. The episode ends with the tune he made getting stuck in his head, with the worm finding a new home.

…Yeah, it’s Squid abuse, but at least it’s somewhat creative, and gives us a nice HERE WE GO AGAIN type ending.

There actually isn’t much else to say. It is mostly just one joke but the one joke worked for me, giving one of my favorite Modern Spongebob songs.

The thing is, this episode is kind of supposed to be annoying. It captures the feeling of being annoyed by a catchy song. The divide happens when some people find it annoying in a funny way, or annoying in a very irritating way.

So I get why a lot of people are annoying by the episode, but I found it amusing. Not one of the best of the Season (or as good as its partner, The Abrasive Side) but I still think it’s an okay episode.

Overall, trying to stop it is futile, so just listen up to my musical doodle!

…Sorry.

6. Some of the Modern Specials

If there’s one thing that Modern Spongebob is known for, it’s weak specials. Some people call these ratings traps, but those are only people who don’t know what that phrase means.

An ratings trap is a heavily advertised death of a character that ends up being pointless,aka Life of Brian.

It’s not a special about SpongeBob losing his memory that YOU personally didn’t like.

Anyway, I pretty much agree that most of the modern specials don’t fill out the time too well and have other flaws. However, most of them at least have some effort put into them, or a plot that could at least sound interesting. Even my least favorite specials (Whobob Whatpants, and Spongebob, You’re Fired) have effort put into either the story or comedy.

And there are three hated ones I kind of enjoy, or at least tolerate despite their flaws. Before I get into them, here are my thoughts on the ones I won’t get into.

UGH: Yeah, it’s dull in places but the funny moments make up for it.

SPONGE WHO COULD FLY: I really don’t see the problem here. The funny moments are flat out amazing (“Hey, I’m your grandfather!”) and the story is quite solid, and it’s a solid musical episode too. Oh, the Bikini Bottomites are jerks? Yeah, that’s the point, guys.

PARTY POOPER PANTS: Almost made the list on its own. Quite a few decent jokes, and Spongebob really isn’t that bad. His situation is relatable, and his actions are over the top and comedic. I can buy that he would do that but I’ll get into that later on. He also gets decent comeuppance But yeah, him cutting Squidward’s cable was bad, as is him getting arrested for…not inviting the cops to the party.

Seriously?

SPONGEBOB VS THE BIG ONE: It’s alright, I guess. I’ve always been indifferent to it, really. I love the Davey jones gag, though.

GREAT PATTY CAPER: Gets off to a very good start, with a fun mystery vibe….but the funniest becomes pointless and it turns into another plankton plot. Yay.

SQUAREPANTS FAMILY VACATION: Again, gets off to a good start with the road trip plot, but becomes dull when they leave the boat. Still alright but could have been something special if they stayed with the road trip plot.

The ones I left out are either praised (Pest of the west), not hated on THAT much (It Came from Goo Lagon), or are…going to be discussed here. First up we have..

THE CLASH OF TRITON:

Season 6
Writers: Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas, Aaron Springer, Steven Banks, Paul Tibbit.

I think the amount of writers kind of dragged this one down, cuz my main issue is how confused the writing can be. Now, some of the ones up there I ENJOY more, but I really respect this one.

They honestly tried to have a more interesting story here, and the concept is at least interesting. Anyway, this special is about Neptune, as it his birthday and he starts missing his son, Triton. He has his party at the Krusty Krab, but his sadness about Triton drags things down.

So Spongebob heads out to find ihm and make things right. Before I move on, I have to say something. There’s been a lot of confusing due to there being two Neptune, one in Neptune’s Spatula/Here, and one in the first movie.

Now, I always assumed they were two different characters. After all, Movie Neptune is King, is more of a dick, and is voiced by Jeffery Tambor who sounds nothing like John o Hurley.

By the time this special came around, you think people just accepted that there are somehow two Neptune’s out there. But nope, people still asked where Mindy and stuff like that. Weird.

Besides, in Krusty Towers, Squidward says the one here is “The 14th”” implying the one in the movie could have been crowned later. That movie is the finale, as Mr Hillenburg said.

There are some issues here, like, didn’t he live in Atlantis or something? Though I get that since they contracted that already, but we’ll get to that one in a bit…

So to get my problems and stuff, here’s the full story: Neptune was all about being an epic god and looking down on peasant fish, while Triton was actually interesting their world. Neptune got pissed and locked him up for a long time.

When he starts to miss him and regret his actions, Spongebob finds him and he sounds like a surfer dude for some reason. Yeah, I wish his personality was more tolerable but ah well.

SB lets him out and he gets mad and heads out to get revenge and do evil stuff. Long story short, Neptune sees his destruction…and is proud of him! Yep, he’s glad he finally learned how to use his god powers. His finally proud of his son and they hug it out.

The episode ends with the citizens chasing after SpongebBob cuz they blame him, I think? I don’t know, I’ll admit that part is dumb.

Now, you can my issues with the writing here, as well some of the good things. Are we supposed to like Neptune or not? He’s clearly shown as in the wrong early on, but at the end he learns nothing and the sweet moment is based on him being wrong.

However…I think that is kind of the point. It’s supposed to heartwarming in a messed up way, and the moment is so sweet it actually works. People complain about how cliché and soap opera-y it is, but I think that works. It’s cliché but it works for how nice it can be at times.

Also, the episode opens with Neptune watching a Soap Opera. It’s safe to say that was the point.

I will say that the time is not spent too well. Stuff takes too long to happen and everything happens as fast as I described. This actually has a decent enough plot for a special, it just needed more meat.

As a final note, the comedy is actually good here. It did need more jokes, but it has more than people claim. We have the audience fish being funny, the last resort joke, and that awesome He-Man reference.

This is one of those episodes I can still sit through despite the flaws, since it is not hugely annoying or gross. …Except when Spongebob puts his face on the cage and it’s really gross with a lot of veins. Ugh, Season 6 was the Season of disturbing veins for some reason.

I respect this one more than I like it but I do like it enough for it’s good parts. So …yeah, I liespect it, as Stinky would say.

Not the best special, but not terrible. Actually, it’s odd how much hate this one gets. Sure, a guy named Zeus could have written a better episode about gods, but I thought this would mostly be hated by the usual people, and normal people like fans on SBM or PieGuy would consider it to be Meh. Nope, they hate it and don’t really see much good in it, despite there clearly being effort here.

Weird. I can see why you would quite dislike it for all these reason, but I don’t quite see what makes it so awful.

Also, marvel at Casey, Zeus, and Aaron being on the same episode for the only time ever!

SPONGEBOB’S LAST STAND:

Season 7

Writers: Aaron Springer, Steven Banks, Derek Iversen

This is technically an Earth Day type special. Yep, it’s an Environmental episode. Those can go either way. Decently well (Zanizbar!) or…like Captain Planet.

And honestly, this is one of the better ones. It’s done in a way that makes sense, and it doesn’t feel out of place for the show.

In this special, SpongeBob and Patrick find out that Jellyfish Fields is being torn down to make way for a highway, so they try to stop that from happening.

See, it works here because it actually makes sense. They care about Jellyfish fields a lot so it actually makes sense that they would want they save it. They don’t randomly care about the environment message because some writer wants to push an agenda on you.

It feels a bit off when you say it out loud, but in context it fits the world of Spongebob. Honestly, they get the message off fairly well. There is only one main complaint I’ll address here.

Yeah, most of this isn’t really bashed, since people hate it for having a Green message more than anything. And they feel the message got ruined by…Plankton.

Yeah, as it turns out that Plankton is doing this, to mow down the Krusty Krab. People accuse Plankton of hijacking the plot of some specials, but honestly that only bugged me in Great Patty Caper.

He was pointless in the TV Movies, but he more of a distraction than anything. I suppose you could argue he is an issue for It Came from Goo Lagoon or Frozen Face Off, but he was at least the center and there were stuff to like about them in case another plankton plot bores you.

Here, I can see their point, but I don’t agree fully. Here, Plankton is a lot more evil than usual and it’s awesome to see!

Starting around Plankton’s Regular or so, he became less threatening and evil than before. He seriously forgot how to blink once, and the writers turned him into Squidward.

Then Mr. Krabs became 100000 times more evil than Plankton ever will be. But here, he is a lot more evil, doing something quite dangerous. And it actually fits with his character, more so than he wanting to take over the world in the movie because reasons.

Does it get in the way message? Eh, it’s up to you. It does turn the special into trying save the Krusty Krab, but the message is still there. I mean, when this came out, I still saw it as a SAVE THE EARTH message. I’m sure most kids will see that too. What else can you see? SAVE THE…fictional restaurant?

Yeah, the message is still there. It’s odd on a narrative level but it works for what it is. There are enough gags here and there (love the Ranger) and the story works fairly well. They get the moral across well without it being as preachy as most stories like this.

Also, there are two songs in this episode…and they are both good! The Jellyfishing song is a nice tune, and Give Jellyfish fields a chance is not only a nice homage, but way catchier than it should be.

Oh, and remember how I said Season 7 had continuity references? Well, this episode has Chum is fum from Chum Bucket Supreme appearing on a billboard at one point! I love it when they prove they watch their own show.

So yeah, it may be flawed in places, but it works for what it is, and the shift to saving the KK isn’t THAT bad. And think about it this way: Modern SpongeBob is trying to teach a moral about the environment.

A Modern Spongebob is trying to teach kids something important. It’s a cliché yes, but for kids it’s great! So yeah, they can’t do an episode about sharing to save their lives, but they can do an episode about the environment.

The SpongeBob writers are weird.
Overall, this isn’t the most…special SpongeBob special in terms of scale, but it’s a fun little story that is among the better Green Aopes I’ve seen nowadays.

And last, but not least….

ATLANTIS SQUAREPANTIS:

Season 5
Writers: Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas, Steven Banks, Dani Micheali.
Patchy Writers: Aaron Springer, Paul Tibbit.

This one is a bit like Clash of Triton. Except here, I mostly agree with the flaws but there are things in it I can enjoy to at least make it easy to sit through, despite the flaws.

It’s like COT in that it’s hated a bit more than it should. Does it deserve to be on worst lists? Sure, but not in a bottom 5 or above episodes like A Pal for Gary. In this case, they greatly over exaggerating the flaws.

Before I address some stuff, let’s go over the plot. To make it brief, the gang finds a lost medallion thingy that actually leads them to the lost city of Atlantis. As it turns out, you just gotta put the medallion on a thingy on the museum and a bus powered by song will take you there!

“Does that make any sense?”

I’m with Squidward.

They there and run into the leader voiced by David Bowie. He takes them on a tour of their advanced city and as the episode goes on, each person stays behind at a certain part they liked. Eventually, SpongeBob and Patrick finally see the oldest living bubble, which they came here for.

After a pointless fake out, they pop the bubble because LRH was stupid enough to bring it with him to dinner. The guards chase theme and after a fun action scene, they bump into Plankton.

Oh yeah, he’s in this. He randomly appears during Song 2, and they never explain how he even got here. He wants Atlantis’ Weapons so he can do evil. He barely does anything until he gets his villain song and threarnrs with a tank…that turns out to be full of ice cream.

Weird. LRH says this amazing “talking spec” will make up for their lost bubble, and Plankton is held up Atlanis until the next episode. Our heroes leave, and LRH throws away the amulet because he doesn’t want visitors like this again.

The special ends with everyone singing about how sad they are to leave Atlantis, except SpongeBob, who is happy.

So, now to address the parts I like. The animation is very nice in this, with Alantis looking fairly cool, and the Atlanteans looking cool, even if they are mutant Blue Meanies. Yeah, the CGI bus is bad, but that’s only a minor thing.

The songs show off art styles that people say are botched, but personally, they look fine. Sandy’s song has the coolest stuff, as weird as some of it is. While there could have been way more jokes, the ones we have are solid enough. The climax is cool and there are other minor things to keep me at least somewhat interested.

Now it’s time for the fun part: Addressing complaints. Yes, there isn’t a huge amount of plot and a lot things make no sense. How did Atlantis get lost? Never explained. Apparently they are an alien civilization …somehow. And a flying bus can get there in a short amount of time with no problem. Lost for thousands of years, people!

Oddly enough, in Sandy’s Rocket, Atlantis is on SpongeBob’s list of things he blames on aliens. Weird.

Yeah, the plot is just the same kind of thing happening over and over again with songs and art styles shoehorned in. However, at least they found a PASSABLE way to pad things out, unlike other specials there quite frankly is nothing good to pad it out.

And honestly, none of the padding is too painful. No one is really out of character, and the comedy isn’t that painful. There’s also no gross out to be found.

The plot has flaws but it’s far from the worst. It’s not a huge bloated mess…it’s a small mess!

People accuse this of “ripping off” Willy Wonka, due to a similar set up. Uh…it’s kind of an homage type thing, guys. Tons of shows do it. Some go a lot farther than his, but this is still on the same level as most of the shows that do this.

So if this “rips” it off, than all those other shows did too.

Now to address the huge elephant in the room: The songs. Yes, it’s a musical. No, it didn’t need to b one. Yes, the songs are pointless. But honestly…they are not THAT bad.

People act they are the worst ear rape ever…when they really aren’t. They are clunky and are not up to SpongeBob’s usual standard. But they sound similar to the show’s usual songs, and they aren’t horrible.

All of them or at least kind of catchy, even the weaker ones. My personal least favorites are Fueling the Bus and Goodbye Atlantis since they so sound a bit too clunky of me at times. I can get through them, but they are weak.

Besides Back in Encino, which barely counts, my favorites are The Bubble Song and Plankton’s Song. They simply sound the least clunky and most pleasant. The weird rhymes work a lot better here and they are fun. I can see Mr. Enter’s point about them in the review (which is one of his weaker SB ones, honestly) but I have no idea why he called this the worst song.

People bash the rhymes, which can be…

“-and our painfully enlarged minds. We can learn to make wonderful things, like melons with edible rinds!”

…weak. And yeah, they can be weak, but eh….they aren’t the worst, and they can be funny for how dumb they are. Besides, I watch a lot of Phineas and Ferb, which often uses bad rhymes for the sake of Comedy. Thus, I am used to it.

Are the songs a tad weak? Sure, but I can tolerate them and they aren’t nearly as bad as people make them out to be.

But I do agree that casting David Bowie in a musical episode and not having him sing is…really stupid. This show has had worse Celebrity Cameos, but he’s still wasted.

As for Patchy, I actually like his segments…for how dumb they are. He’s out in traffic trying to get home to catch Spongebob but Encino randomly vanishes and he gets lost. He goes crazy and long story short, it turns out aliens shrunk the city and they return things to normal, only for Potty to be huge and crush Patchy.

…

Uh…okay. It’s really dumb and out of place for Patchy but it’s funny for how dumb it is. I personally think there’s as much Patchy as there needs to be. It’s exactly proportionate to the SB stuff, just a bit longer due to the extra time. It was his weakest stuff up to that point but eh, he’s okay.

In all honestly, I could have left this off the slot since I put it in the same category as some of the ones I left off, but there is more for me to enjoy in some of those.

And I really wanted to talk about how over hated this thing is. The plot is bloated, but not THAT bloated, it’s not hugely funny, but not painful, and the songs are weak but not awful.

It’s disappointing and they could have done more with it, but people act like it’s the worst thing ever, when it’s really not. It is guilty of the criticisms people throw at it, but when people bash it, they sound they like they watched something much worse.

Even Mr Enter and Pieguy’s reviews just sounded a bit odd, even though they are not really WRONG in what they say. It’s odd.

As a final note, there is a reason it is this way. It was going a simpler 11 minute SpongeBob adventure, but Nick had it expanded to the way it is. How do I know this? Casey Alexander said do in Twitter…and because of this,. He says it’s his least favorite episode he’s worked on.

Yes, even one of the writers admitted it sucked. That’s…amazing. …Wait, even Casey finds it worse than One Coarse meal?!

So overall, Altantis isn’t the best TV movie, and it may not belong on this spot, but it has enough amusing moments to make it watchable for me.
While the Modern Special tends to be kind of weak, most of them at least try and these 3 get more hate than they deserve.

5. Karate Island

Season 4

Writers: Casey Alexander, Chris Mitchell, Steven Banks

Season 4 is generally considered to be a decent enough season, despite having some signs of what was coming. However, there are still some episode that makes worst lists. Hell, Season 4 dominated my own worst lists, because I was stupider back then.

Almost all of them deserve their status…except this one. The reasoning is a little better, but not by much.

In this episode, Spongebob is invited to the titular island, where he is crowned the King of Karate. He invites Sandy along and when they get there, the title goes to Spongebob’s head a bit.

Sandy gets mad about this and leaves, and of course this is when it turns out Master Udon, voiced by Mr Miagi himself in his final role, complete with dedication, is a bad guy. He captures SpongeBob and Sandy must save him.

The main complaint I hear about this is Spongebob. People see he was a jerk who let this all go to his head, when that is never the case with him. I have four words for that:

As Seen on TV.

In that episode, Spongebob is in a Krusty Krab commercial that aired at 3 AM for like 5 seconds, and he lets it go to his head. Now, that one is better because he simply thinks he’s super famous and thus the comedy really shines through.

However, he’s still kind of an egotistical jerk here, since he firmly believes he is famous, and thus this is what fame does to him. He doesn’t even learn his lesson! He just thinks his fry cooking is part of entertaining the people and claims he “gave up” fry cooking!

So how is that better than him acting this way here? If you just think it’s not funny like it was there, that’s fine. But here, he’s doing it to learn a lesson, and it works!

Seriously, there have been too many times where people bash character being jerks…when it’s being done so they can learn a lesson. But I’ll have time to rant on that some other time.

This leads me to the other big complaint: Glorifying Sandy. People say this was done as a cheap way to make her look stronger than Spongebob, when they are usually on an even playing level.

I think this was just done to make SB learn a lesson, but onto my rebuttal. Now, usually they are even like in Karate Choppers, but they’ve said more than once that Sandy is a bit stronger.

In her introduction, Tea at the Treedome, she saved Spongebob from the clam when he failed to save her and it was clearly shown was a bit better at Karate. Then in No Weenies Allowed, she flat out kicked his ass. Perhaps the biggest example is MuscleBob BuffPants where SpongeBob is super weak and she tries/fails to train him.

Now, making SB a jerk just to make her seem better is dumb, but it’s done for another reason and it’s the only they did it. Honestly, I have no problems with Modern Sandy, except that she needs to do more.

As a side note, I think she was only derailed in To Save a Squirrel, which did some pretty bad stuff in the name of science, and Kenny the Cat where she was racist for no reason. Those are minor compared to the number of Patrick’s a prick episodes..

Also, SB being jerk isn’t overblown and it only tastes a bit so we can get into the main part of the episode, with her trying to save him.

Now for why I like the episode. Besides some nice moral stuff, this episode homages the kung fu genre pretty well with a lot of fun gags, including intentionally bad “dubbing”. The fight scenes were creative, with some amusing villains, like the Tickler.

Then there’s the final punchline with Udon’s motivation, which is hilarious I won’t even spoil it for you. Add in an awesome climax and another here we go again ending, and you have an honestly decent episode.

My only problem is that maybe SpongebBob’s jerky-ness could have been a bit funnier, but other than that, this is a good one.

…Oh yeah, there’s another reason people hate this one. Like with House Fancy, it’s dumb so I put it off until now. See, in the lead up to Best Day Ever (another ep over hated for an odd, but understandable reason), they had kids vote on the top 100 Spongebob episodes.

This was number one.

That…pissed people off. If you didn’t know about any this, you may find this a bit dumb since it being voted as good by a bunch of kids is not a good reason for hating it.

You would be right. Is it dumb for an episode like this to be voted as the best? Yeah, but is it enough for it be hated?

The other reasons didn’t even pop up until very recently, so don’t even give me the “people dislike it before this” crap. So you can imagine happy I was when Pieguy still rated it good despite this.

If you dislike it for the reasons I mention, that’s fine since they are still valid despite my views. But if you only dislike it for that reason….it’s dumb.

If it makes you happy, they did this voting thing again in 2009, and Pizza Delivery won there. That one is more popular, to say the least.
Overall, Karate Island is a fun genre episode with decent gags. Not much else to say really. Not the best of Season 4 but still solid.

4. Spongecano!

Season 7

Writers: Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas, Derek Iversen

In Season 7, they had a little gimmick called “Legends of Bikini Bottom”. They were 6 episodes aired on the same night that had similar themes of mystical or far out premises. They even all had the title cards start with a book opening.

These episodes were not hugely popular, and people seem to hate this whole group. For me, the whole thing, just together, was…meh. They should have been more memorable, but a lot of them were just…there. Which makes no sense cuz they at least had okay premises.

The Monster who came to Bikini Bottom was predictable and had some Patprick, Welcome to the Bikini Bottom Triangle was alright but nothing special, The Main Drain wasn’t as bad as people say but it was still an average Hooky rip off, and Trenchbillies was dull as all hell.

There were only 2 that made an impression on me, and those happened to be the only flat out good ones. There was Curse of the Hex which actually had a good plot with some fun gags, and there’s my personal favorite, Sponge-Can…which is sometimes seen as one of the worst of these.

Go figure.

I can see why people hate it, but let’s get into the plot. My biggest problem actually pops up at the start. Spongebob is annoying Squidward again, and he claims he is sharing his attitude of gratitude.

Then he breaks into…a song about his attitude of gratitude…which is backed up…by gross garbage monsters. After the song abruptly ends, the monster vanish. It comes out of nowhere, has nothing to do with anything, and no one ever mentions it again…

Yeah, that sums it up. Honestly, this is my least favorite song in the show. At least the songs in Atlantis almost served some kind of purpose. This one is kind of enjoyable in a WTF kind of way but it’s a BLAM and it only serves to prevent the plot from starting.

Squidward goes to the Krusty Krab and after he gets annoyed so much, he shouts that he’s the most miserable person in Bikini Bottom. After so many torture episodes, I can see why you feel that way.

He then says life in Bikini Bottom can’t get any worse.

“Mt Bikini Bottom Is about to erupt!”

Wah wah. Also the plot starts a mere 4 minutes into the episode. Trust me, we don’t need further proof that Squidward is miserable. Though it’s worth pointing out that he gripes about minor things that really could only bug him. That’s important for later.

After taking shelter, an ancient warrior Dolphin voiced by Dee Bradley Baker shows up and says his people were taken out by this very volcano. Naturally, the only way to stop it to make a sacrifice.

So we have a dire situation in need of sacrifice, and a magic dolphin. See why I said Sponge out of water took stuff from this episode?

As luck would have it, they must sacrafice the most miserable person. Hey, at least there’s a creative way to torture Squid in this one. They try to throw Squidward in but…SpongeBob offers to sacrifice himself instead, because he’s the one that made Squidward miserable.

…Damn! But that’s not even the best part. Squidward trips and is dangling off the side. SpongeBob says he would love to help but Squidward told him to never help him again. And he says this in a way that implies he honestly took value to what Squid said and is just obeying his wishes.

“I take it back! Please SpongeBob, I didn’t mean any of that! I do appreciate your friendship, I am grateful! …I’m grateful for the life I’m livin’, who knows how long I’ll have it? I learned that from you, remember?”

Spongebob saves him.

“I always knew you felt that way”

Before I gush, let’s wrap it up. Squidward’s house is launched right into the volcano, stopping it. Don’t ask, it’s from a bit from earlier. Turns out, you had to sacrifice the most miserable persons house.

“No one ever listens to me”

SpongeBob is weird.

The dolphin flies away and Squidward claims that he lied and he’s not grateful. He complains he doesn’t have a roof anymore, and the episode ends with Squidward sleeping with Spongebob.

…Not like that.

I think it’s easy to see why I like this episode. It’s the first time in a very long time they did something interesting with a Squidward “torture” episode. Let’s think about it. Like I said, he moaned about minor things and SpongeBob didn’t annoying ihm THAT much and he was even willingly to back off.

Squidward’s problem was honestly not being grateful for what he has, since we know things with Spongebob could get much worse.

Cough Choir Boys Cough.

So Squidward actually brings this on himself by letting himself be miserable. This ends up being a way to teach him to grateful for having SpongeBob in his life. They actually came up with a Squidward torture that was only creative, but actually used the torture to teach him a lesson!

That’s…awesome. Not to mention him admitting he likes SpongeBob is really heartwarming, especially with Spongebob’s reply. Speaking of which, SB is really likable here, backing off when needed and helping out Squidward quite a bit.

Now I must comment on the ending. Yes, it’s a bit odd, but knowing Squidward, he just said that for one of two reasons: He was angry about his house and wasn’t thinking, or he wanted to save face. Kind of like Mr. Krabs in Selling Out.

It’s cheap at first but I can deal, and the ending is still nice with SB letting him stay at his place. Squid just makes a snarky comment of being super angry. Could it have ended better? Yes. It almost ruins my little tangent about him kind of deserving all this to learn a lesson.

But despite that, I quite liked this episode. My only other problem is that the plot takes a bit to get started, and the idea to throw Squid in comes in when there’s like 3 minutes left. But the title promises a Volcano and that pops up like 3 and a half minutes in so it’s not a huge problem.

Oh, and I have a nitpick: Why is the mayor completely different in this one? Seriously, every time he appears he looks the same…except this one where he’s a completely different model!

I know SpongeBob isn’t the best with continuity but he’s back to his normal form in episodes he appears in after this…hell, he’s in our next spot on the list!

Whatever, it’s not a huge deal.

It’s not super funny but Squidward gives us nice snark, some of the citizens have good lines, and the Dolphin is amazing. Too bad he’s not in it a lot.

Curse of the Hex may have been funnier and more consistent, but this was my personal favorite LOBB episode due to having the best written Squid torture in a long time and a very sweet moment.

And in the end, the song did have a point to give us arc words…but the monsters make it a BLAM.

I can see why some may not like it due to the song, the plot taking a bit to get started, and the ending, but if you think about it the way idea, you may respect it more.

I think it’s a good episode, and a bright spot in a small sea of mostly just…meh episodes. Not much else to say. ..This was a fun one to talk about. Actually, I have one final note.

This is the 7th episode on the list that was written by Casey and Zeus, and that includes both of the specials I covered. And it’s 8 if you count Karate Island for Casey.

I think I’ve found the real reason why people hate these episodes…

3. Drive Thru

Season 8

Writers: Aaron Springer, Dani Michaeli

All of these episodes, even the ones coming up, have one thing in common: I 100 percent get why people do not like them. I may not get why they receive flat out hatred, but I get why people dislike them.

…That cannot be said for this one. I really don’t see the problem with this one. The only complaint I hear is one I’ll debunk quickly in just a moment. First, the basic plot.

The Krusty Krab gets a Drive Thru (again) and hijinks ensue. That’s really it. It’s a simple plot that leads to a lot of crazy jokes.

This episode does a lot of little things correct. They fill up the time by giving us jokes all throughout, and thus nothing feels wasted, and it does not fill like pointless padding. Everyone is in character, and Mr. Krabs is super cheap in a funny way that barely harms people and in the end, he gets comeuppance for being so cheap!

Wait a second…filling up the time with a lot of jokes so it doesn’t feel like padding…simply premise with a lot of wacky stuff and jokes…Mr. Krabs being cheap in a good way and getting what he deserves…

…This kind of feels like a Pre-Movie episode. Seriously. Now, it’s not quite as good as some of them but it has a very similar feel. I thought this when I first saw it and I still feel that way now.

So you can imagine my confusion when I found out people don’t seem to like it. Even taking away the whole Pre-Movie thing, it’s still a pretty good episode on it’s own. The premise leads to a lot of fun gags and some nice escalation.

Mr. Krabs is too cheap to get a real drive thru so he just makes a hole and uses that. As the episode goes on, things get crazier with the hole causing problems and him making more holes.

Everyone gets some amusing lines (especially Squidward) and we even get minor appearances from supporting characters like Pearl and Larry. Plankton is even used well as he has a notable appearance without taking over the plot.

They keep the pace up for most of and it’s all quite enjoyable. Other episodes have better jokes but it’s still done quite well. I wish more Modern Episodes would take cues from this one, and just take tons of humor out of a simple premise.

There are Season 8 episodes I like more, but that’s mostly due to have unique premises or having stuff I’ve been wanting to see. The only reason for hating it I can think of is that Mr. Krabs is too cheap.

Yeah, Squidward is too grumpy, what’s your point?

Being cheap has been part of character since the beginning and this is no different than normal for him. Here, it’s more along the lines of his earlier cheapness. Plus, all he does is just refuse to pay for fancy stuff. That’s not that bad and it adds to the plot in a funny way. Oh, and he gets comeuppance in the end, too!

That’s the only problem I’ve heard and I shut it down right. I’d like to hear a real reason for disliking it beyond just not finding it funny. Personally, I think it’s every Modern Spongebob should be.

The characters are good, and it has a simple premise that leads to a lot of crazy jokes. It’s fun to watch and it’s a perfect example of why I think Season 8 was better than the previous two seasons, despite its flaws.

There really isn’t much else to say, because this episode is simple. It’s funny and it gets a lot of things correct, and it has a pre movie feel. If you hate it, that’s fine as long as you give me actual reasons that make sense.

The only reason it isn’t number one is because our next two make more sense to be high up in the context of this list.

So yeah, very good underrated episode. Let’s drive through to the next one!

…I’m so sorry.

2. The Great Snail Race

Season 3

Writers: Paul Tibbit, Kent Osborne, Merriweather Williams

LE GASP! A Pre Movie episode is on a list about hated episodes?!

That’s right. No show is perfect, and Classic SpongeBob seems to be no exception. Some people have hated on some pre movie episodes since any good show will have it’s duds.

However, I actually disagree with all of them. From minor ones that have gotten some hate recently (Jellyfishing, Club Spongebob) to the big three. Those three are Party Pooper Pants, which I talked about earlier, I’m With Stupid, which I’m on PieGuy’s side with, and this one.

Now, I don’t think Pre Movie is perfect by any means. There are episodes I don’t think are quite as fun as others, and there are minor moment I dislike, like Patrick being fully ready to crush a baby clam in Rocky a Bye Bivalve.

Seriously, why does no one bitch about that?

It’s that each episode has so much effort and comedy put into them that I can say all of them were worth sitting through for me. Even if it’s for something minor. There are no Pre Movie episodes I dislike. Just ones I don’t think are up to par with others.

It’s just me though, and I totally get why some are disliked or seen as “Meh”. But of those 3, this is the one I disagree with the most. I get the hate more for I’m with Stupid but with this one, I have counter arguments that people usually realize but just…didn’t with this one.

So what’s the plot? When Squidward gets a prize snail to enter in the titular race, he insults Gary and calls him a mutt. This offends SpongeBob and decides enter Gary in the race to show Squidward that Gary is a winner.

Naturally, he takes it too far and overworks Gary. I’ve got a lot to say I’m not sure where to begin. I think I’ll give the two main reason I like this episode.

First, it’s got a very solid story and moral. SpongeBob overworks Gary for the sake of telling a good story where he learns not push him so hard. In the end, he sees that we he did was wrong, and Gary ends up fine in the end. He even finds love in the form of Snellie!

…Then they broke up or something, because she randomly vanishes and is owned by Mrs. Puff in The Sponge Who Could fly. Even though she says that she had her since she was a little girl…

Whatever, that’s not important.

I like they had a bit of development and moral stuff for once and it’s well written. It’s more of a story episode and it’s a nice one.

The other reason I like is the big one. You know, the thing people like PieGuy value most in a SpongeBob episode. It’s funny. It’s a pre movie episode so it’s based around jokes and there are a lot of good gags here.

We’ve got Squidward’s last name mix up (“Its tennis balls, I mean Tentacles”), Lightning Larry, Sandy’s Cameo and of course, Rocky!

“He’s got nerves of steel!”

It’s no Band Geeks but it’s got tons of very funny jokes, and all of them are highly memorable. The only time they slow down on the jokes is to move the story, and that only happens like twice, and even then at least something interesting is happening. It’s adding the story, they don’t slow it down for no reason.

Now to address the complaints. Yes, it has SpongeBob being a jerk, and some Gary torture. But like I said, it’s there for the story. He acts like a jerk to learn the lesson. It’s not just there to be there for no reason. Gary is tortured as part of the development and story.

None of this is pointless torture or jerky-ness just for the sake of it. I know I ranted on this earlier, but SpongeBob being a jerk is the POINT. But don’t worry, I’ll have plenty of time to rant on that some other time, I promise.

Is Gary being tortured hard to watch? Eh…maybe. The first big time we see that is the mini montage with him being overworked into the night and nothing really horribly happen. He’s just being tired out and it happens in a quick way and SpongeBob is latterly shown sleeping while he’s yelling, which is kind of amusing.

The next time is during the race where Gary spins out and crashes…like a Car. As in, he’s got Car like inside-y parts and he spins out. People say this is hard to watch, and usually it would be…but like I said, he’s a car. It’s so cartoon-ish and over the top that it isn’t too hard!

The writers/animators knew how to make stuff like cartoon-y enough so that it’s not painful. Another example is Squidward chocking in Naughty Nautical Neighbors .It’s a little harsh but it kind of works in a weird way.

I will admit, SpongeBob yelling at him right before he blows up is kind of hard to watch but it’s over quick. Then we have SpongeBob’s behavior. The main reason I can excuse at at first is that he’s doing to stand up for Gary, which is admirable. He just…goes too far.

I’ve heard arguments that it’s still out of character for him to care about Squidward being a jerk and him being competitive does not fit with him.

I have TWO episodes to counteract this with:

1. The Fry Cook Games

SpongeBob is rather stuck up about how good of a fry cook he is, and he gets into a fight with his best friend over it.

2. Employee of the Month

SpongeBob gets worried that Squidward will take his award and he gets into a huge fight with him over this.

Both of those episodes showed that SpongeBob can be a bit competive if he’s pushed hard, or something he values is factored in. That’s the great thing about his character. He’s not just some happy guy who is annoying. He sees the good in everyone and he can be both a straight man and a goofball, AND he can be pushed into beign a jerk without be too weird, at least in the pre movie era.

That’s why it works in all of these episodes. Heck, he’s kind of worse in EOTM because he latterly tries to stop Squidward from getting to the Krusty Krab by trapping him in a hole!

Now, you can excuse that one because he’s just going crazy and he couldn’t get the idea out of his mind once it was planted. He’s impulsive like that. But come on, he’s worried about SQUIDWARD taking his award. That’s the joke but how come that is excused by many people and not this?

As for Fry Cook Games, he’s just offend that Patrick thinks being a fry cook is easy. So you can excuse him being a jerk due to being worried his award will be taken, and his friend being a bit over confident, but not due to his pet being insulted?

Now, he does go a bit farther here and it does feel a bit more off and less funny than in those. But there are a few jokes in there like the whole lady thing. It’s done more for the story here than in those.

I think it mostly works for the episode is going for, because it’s for a good reason and there’s more to it than just that. And you know what else makes this episode quite good?

Patrick. He’s great in this episode.

Not only does he have some great lines, but there are two minor things that make this one of his best performances. First, when Rocky doesn’t move during the race because …he’s a rock, he just pats him and says he’ll go when he feels like it.

Sure, it’s for the sake of a joke but it’s still kind of nice. Then at the end, he has the trophy Engraved to Squidward, even though he’s been a jerk to him this whole time. …And Squidward doesn’t mind!

He makes a snarky comment and just laughs about it! This is amazingly sweet for both parties! Why does no one ever talk about this, it’s amazing!

So yeah, I think I’ve made my case. I see people think this episode is more mean than funny and it’s seen as the worst Pre Movie episode. But for me, it’s a very funny episode with a solid story, featuring solid development and a really sweet ending.

This is my favorite episode on this list, along with Karen 2.0. I value that one more for reason I explained, but this is the best written episode on here, hands down. I like it.

Oh, and the tittle card music is Now That’s Were Men. Nice.

Now, after all that, with me saying we covered the best episodes on the list, what could be number one?

You’ll find out…after some HONORABLE MENTIONS:

GROWTH SPOUT: Some people rag on it off handedly, and I don’t get it. Mr. Krabs cares about pearl a ton and there’s a few very clever gags. It wasn’t on the list because people tend to ignore it instead of hate it.

KRUSTY DOGS: Almost made it due to the fact that like Drive Thru, I don’t get the hate. Seriously, it’s a fun little episode where SpongeBob and Squidward actually team up! There’s not a lot to hate, though I will admit it doesn’t have many memorable lines..

“It only seems to have increased their appetite for wieners”

“..Something that will make Mr. Krabs whole wiener thing blow right up in his face”

…For the most part.

RISE AND SHINE: It’s a simple fun short about Patrick’s morning. What’s so atrocious about it?

RULE OF DUMB: This one is more love it or hate and I while I don’t love it, I think it’s an example of how to make Patrick a prick without it being annoying. And you know, there’s actually a reason here.

BEST DAY EVER: Yeah, it was really overhyped and maybe the moral may seem off due to the writing, but it came across fine and it’s a fun little story that gave us a showcase of that awesome song.

That’s all I got for those, though there may a few more I forgot. So, what tops all of these?

Without further ado, the Number One SpongeBob episode I like that everyone hates is…

1. Truth or Square

Season 6

Writers: Luke Brookshier, Nate Cash, Steven Banks, Paul Tibbitt.

Patchy Writers: Paul Tibbit, Steven Banks, Derek Iversen, Mr. Lawrence, Dani Michaeli, Richard Pursel, Aaron Springer

…Oh boy, there’s a lot to cover for this one. Before I go any further here, I must make one thing clear: This is the other Guilty pleasure episode I mentioned. It is not, what I would call a “Good” episode…but even on a critical level, I do not view it as terrible one. Unlike most of the episodes on this, I 100 percent see why everyone hates it. I can agree with most of the criticisms lodged at this episode.

Why is it even on the list at all, much less number one? Why do I kind of like it? Well, I’ll get into as I “review” it….But before we cover the actual plot, we got to talk about Patchy.

I…can’t defend him for the most part. Most of his segments are the same joke over and over again. He calls up a guy who wanted a paycheck, I mean a celebrity guest, they say screw you, lather rinse and repeat. Oh, and add a harsher in hindsight joke with Robin Williams for good measure.

However, in the 2nd part, (the only part shown in reruns) where he’s looking for SpongeBob is…better. He’s not as annoying and there are some cool bits. I love the old timey cartoon tribute and the Alternate theme songs. Seriously, you may have issues with his segments but how could you hate the Alternate theme songs?

Here’s the thing: The Patchy segments are weak but man are they overhated. I mean, it’s him running around and just doing stuff. He’s not crying for minutes on end, he’s not being a mean jerk, he’s driving anyone to suicide or anything like that. His segments are just overlong, repetitive and stupid.

I know everyone has their opinion and what may be just slightly off to someone could be the most annoying thing in the world in the others. But I fail to see how his segments are the worst thing ever. They are kind of crummy but here’s the thing. Some have said this is a huge low point in the series, it’s some of Tom Kenny’s worst work, and it’s a perfect sign of Nick giving us the middle finger.

It’s Patchy running around and doing dumb stuff with celebrities.

If you haven’t seen the episode, this may sound like people are over reacting a bit. You would be correct.

Look, it’s his weakest work and you can go ahead and hate but I think saying all that is overkill. Now onto SpongeBob.

I suppose I’ll actually give the reason why it deserves some hate before I go explaining why I like it. This is a big hyped up 10th anniversary special and all the commercials said there would tons of epic revelations. They showed Spongebob and Krabs on some epic quest, secrets would be revealed and…Spongebob Marries Sandy? Holy crap, this is going to be amazing!

The plot is that they are trapped in the Krusty Krab vents. All the flashbacks are not from previous episodes, nothing is really revealed, that epic quest was from some flashback that was treated as a quick gags, and Spongebob marrying Sandy only happened in a play…but the priest was real and he didn’t know it was a play.

…So they are technically married, I guess.

Needless to say, this made people mad. It’s kind of like…well..

“That’s it? That’s the lost episode? IT WAS JUST A BUNCH OF CHEAP WALK CYCLES! SPONGEBOB BETRAYED US!”

Yeah.

I totally get that. My 2009 self didn’t really notice and ate it up because I was a dumb kid. I’m a dumb adult now, which is totally different. It’s not a fitting anniversary special at all.

Now, it is unfair to bash an episode due to misleading ads, since the writers have no control over that. However, the writers also control the actual content of the “movie” and that is mostly wasted on filler and nothing here warrants it being a “movie”.

So I complete get why people hate it. HOWEVER…if you view just as a typical Spongebob episode that happens to longer…it’s not THAT bad. No one is totally out of character, and there’s nothing within the episode’s content that’s especially annoying or gross.

Well, except the bit with Baby Spongebob in his mom’s stomach. That was….why?!

The gags we do get are mostly solid and I quite like the flashbacks. It’s cool to see how Spongebob’s pineapple house came to be and if you look past how misleading the ads were on this…the Sandy thing is kind of funny.

We also get some solid songs, like the “Oh Krusty Krab” thing at the end, and I don’t care who you are, you must admit that “A Day like This” is amazing. I can get through this special mostly fine, getting some solid things to enjoy while not being pissed off too much by the conent.

As an anniversary special it fails, but as an episode in itself, it’s…okay. The extra time makes it a bit dull but it’s still better than a couple others, at least. I have no doubt this was just a normal episode that they were forced to make longer. It happened with Allantis, after all.

Of course, it is plagued with filler, which is the episodes biggest problem. It’s got a ton of stuff that does not to be here like some of the flashbacks, the old Krusty Krab commercial, and Plankton. However, most of it is at least kind of enjoyable so it’s not like NOTHING is happening. So there you go.

So, what is it that makes me like enough to make it number one? After all, this sounds like it belongs back with the specials I discuss earlier. Well, here it goes.

I have a strong connection with Spongebob, as I’ve made perfect clear. I mean, it’s in my name. Spongebob is my childhood, put it simply. This is the same for a lot of people, and that’s why pretty much everyone was hyped for this.

Even though who may have given up likely came back just to see this. Nick hyped up this anniversary to hell and back. There was a 40 hour marathon leading up it, including that fan voted episode list I mentioned. There were cool new DVD’s, interesting merchandise, CD’s, and tons upon tons of stuff. They even aired an actual documentary on Spongebob right after this, which is also on the Truth or Square DVD.

All of this got to me, as it really made me look back at the shows legacy. My connection with the show made me just love all the stuff souring this, all the hype, and everything that comes with it. So that’s part of a reason why I liked the special more at the time.

For most people, their connection is why they hated it. It’s why this one made a lot of people quit the show, even if they stuck with it after The Splinter. Yet with me, the connection is what made me like it.

Granted, everything around it got to me more than the actual episode, but my point still stands. And you know what? The episode itself is part of everything I said too. The song at the start, some of the flashbacks, the insanely sweet climatic song, and SpongeBob’s final line:

“Happy anniversary, Krusty Krab”

All of that gets to me and hits my connection with the show in a good way. And that’s my point. It needed more of that! It’s there in small part but most of it is just amusing filler. Those parts like an emotional celebration of everything Spongebob is.

The rest is…not. But those small parts add up. That’s why I like this one, despite its faults. My nostalgic connection won’t let me like it less. That’s why it’s a guilty pleasure, and even on this list on a separate slot.

Is it dumb? Yes, I’ll admit that. Most of my enjoyed comes from pure nostalgia, on how everything around this special just got to me. That’s why it’s a Guilty pleasure, you know.

But I say, even critically, it’s mostly just…average. It’s got filler and other problems, but it some fun gags, interesting moments, and even a sweet ending. Does it deserve hate? Sure, for reasons I went into. Does it deserve to be on worst lists, along with stuff like The Splinter?

Eh, maybe not quite. If it’s more your personal rage on how it disappointed you, fine. But if you still think its “horrible” after looking at on its own…well that’s fine, but I suppose it is hard to look at it on its own. Though if you watched it years later, without the positive hyped, than maybe you can do that.

Overall, I like it because it and everything around it touched me due my own connection with the series. It’s got some good elements along with its bad parts, but I can still get through it and mostly…enjoy it, if only on a personal level.

All that is what makes Truth or Square the number one SpongeBob episode I like that everyone else hates.

And that’s my list. I must say, it was a ton of fun looking at these episodes and explaining why I overall enjoy them. I’m pretty proud of this one, I must say.

The big takeaway from all this is that art is subjective. You all have the right to hate any episode on this list, even if I sounded a bit angry at some of you for not liking it. I was mostly just saying that to say it, you know? I think it’s interesting which episodes tend to be loved, hated or mixed.

Opinions can be interesting, and I think that’s the big takeaway here. But the important thing is to talk about things rationally at least tried to calmly explain why I like these episodes. It’s fine to disagree with me and I’d love to hear you guys thoughts my rebuttals and leave a comment explaining why you disagree…as long as you’re polite about it, of course.

I think we can all agree that SpongeBob is an interesting show to talk about it, and it always be. Trust me, this won’t be the last time I do a Spongebob related blog post.

So there you go. As a wise man once said, as long as there are stars in the sky, Spongebob will live on in our hearts and in our minds.

Now get lost. I mean, good bye.

No really, get lost.

See ya.

Movie Review: Sponge Out of Water

Hello, Spongey here.

It’s no secret that I’ve had an interesting relation with Spongebob. I mean, he’s kind of in my name. On at least two huge occasions, I’ve told you that this show pretty much represents my childhood.

It’s also no secret that Spongebob hit a rough spot after the creator left after the movie. Most people agree that Seasons 4 and 5 are alright, since they have great episodes to counteract the crappy ones. Then came Season 6 where…yeah you know by now.

In about two posts I’ve been kind of defending this era, mostly due to my connection with the show. You may recall my Worst Episode where I seemed like I was trying to fit rather than share bad episodes.

Pet or Pests still sucks though.

I haven’t really admitted this yet but…my feelings have changed. No, my mind has been brainwashed by the internet or people like Mr Enter or anything like that. I just reached the point where I started finding more episodes I disliked, and now I consider myself kind of on the side of people saying the show is not exactly the best now.

I am not a hater by any means. Despite the bad stuff, I still do like it overall due to the good episodes we get. For every One Coarse Meal there’s a Hello Bikini Bottom. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.

No, we’re here to talk about movies. As you know, I reviewed the 2004 film which is near and dear to my heart. The show has trucked on afterwards creating some rather mixed episodes. Then a couple years ago, Nick finally announced they were make another movie.

A lot of people were cautiously optimistic. It could bring new life to the Sponge or kill him again. When they heard it would feature live action and the character would be CGI while on land….yeah the reaction was mixed.

It doesn’t help the live action segments are directed by the brilliant man who brought us Chipwrecked. ..And also wrote two episodes of Spongebob…including my favorite Season 5 episode, Friend or Foe. Whatever, at least the director of the first Alvin movie wasn’t a writer on SB since literately the pilot.

…What was I talking about?

As more info came out, people got more interested. And now the movie is out, with a lot of people saying they were pleasant surprised. Most critics liked it, as it has a 71 or so on RT, PieguyRulz liked it, and Ani-Mat actually gave it an 8.

Naturally, I’ve been excited for another Spongebob movie, regardless of how good or bad it is. The trailers impressed me and the reviews are helping as well. Oh, and a little guy named Steven Hillbenburg is working on the story.

That’s cool.

Will the movie be as good as it looks and bring life back to the Sponge, or is he finally washed up? Let’s find out!

This, is The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

STORY:

When the Krabby Patty formula vanishes during yet another attempt to take it on Plankton’s part, he is blamed and Bikini Bottom faces an apocalypse Now it’s up to Spongebob and Plankton to find out what happened to it, and little do they know that an evil pirate is up to all, and they’ll need all they got to stop him…

So allow me to get one thing straight: The live part you see all over the trailers? It’s the 3rd act. We spend a good amount of time, but it’s at least only the last 20 minutes or so. About 70, or 80 percent the movie takes place down in Bikini Bottom.

It makes sense that they advertised that part more, but it did stop some people from seeing it. Anyway, how is the story? Well, it’s about the same as the first: Nothing groundbreaking, but very serviceable.

The difference between the first movie and this one is that the first one had more an epic story, while this is more along of the ones of something you would see in the show. However, that is a plus in this film’s favor as it has some of the minor stuff the first film was missing: Use of the supporting characters, and most importantly: THE MY LEG GAG.

Yes, it’s back after it’s long absence since Season 6! 10/10, best movie ever!

Now, they add enough elements to make it worthy of a feature but you do need to know what you’re getting into with this. As for the story itself, it’s okay. It’s nothing really complex and there aren’t a ton of twists and turns. That’s fine, since Spongebob was never really made for a complex story, and it’s mostly there to give us a simple moral I’ll get into, and some gags.

And the gags work! It’s no Chocolate with Nuts, but it’s a funny movie with plenty of solid gags. Both segments have their share of gags, but the funniest is….while I won’t spoil it but I’ll save it involves Spongebob’s brain. Yeah. I don’t I’ve laughed that hard at Spongebob in quite a while.
The story does have its share of issues.

It’s probably just a personal thing, but I did want a few more subplots. They pad the film out find but the first film had a few more minor things, and it cut between the gang and Bikni Bottom to even things out.

They do stuff like that, but some parts can feel padded out and they could have fixed out by including just little subplots here and there and perhaps a few more characters, but I’ll get into that later.

Speaking of padding, that’s only a minor issue here. It does feel a bit padded out sometimes to meet the 90 minute mark. But like I said, it’s only minor, and unlike the show’s infamous TV Movies, every single scenes adds to the plot and has something interesting or amusing.

I was a bit worried that this movie wouldn’t have an emotional backbone like the first one, but thankfully it does. See, it’s mostly a buddy movie with Plankton and Spongebob as Plankton learns about teamwork. It’s a basic moral but it actually got more emotional than I expected.

No, it doesn’t too far without it, so you won’t cry, but there are some moments I did D’aww at. Plankton got the most development he’s had since Plankton’s Pet…which wasn’t that long ago, so why did I point that out.

There’s one bit I did not expect, and it’s with Plankton and a different character. No spoilers though. Now, my only other issue is that the ending is a bit abrupt. Yeah yeah I know, but it didn’t quite give you the feeling of accomplishment like the first one did.

Okay, I swear that’s my last comparison to the first movie. The ending still worked, and I did like how they handled the status qou without being too insulting. It could have been bigger, you know?
Oh, and as some have pointed out, there are plot lines that are similar to episodes of the show. Most specifically they took inspiration from F.U.N, Mermaid and BarnacleBoy 5 and oddly enough, Sponge-Cano. The first two seem obvious but you’ll only get the last one if you’ve the movie.

Despite my bitching, the story works. It’s there to give us that moral and a lot of funny gags. Spongebob is always more about jokes than story and this one balanced out that decently. Also, the way Burger Beard works into this is odd but eh, I can deal.

As for how they become heroes…it’s amazing, but no spoilers.

Overall, the story may recycle plot lines, and have other minor issues, but it works due to giving us a wonderful character dynamic, and some very funny gags. Could it have been a bit meatier? Sure, but Spongebob is supposed to be funny, and this film very much is.

ANIMATION:

Before I address the big thing, let’s go over something else. Yes, this is a mostly 2D animated movie, that’s in theaters. That’s…pretty amazing. How is the 2D animation? It’s pretty good!

Much like the first movie, they just gave the show a theatrical boost, and in some ways it’s weaker and better. Weaker in that they don’t as many crazy things with it, but better in that it looks just a bit better. The colors are a lot brighter and the characters are designed better and just move better.

It is mostly just modified version of the show’s animation, but it works, giving us some really nice looking movements. They do some cool things in the Mad Max Bikini Bottom Section and stuff like that. Every character looks good and all that good stuff.

One weird choice that did is with the backgrounds. Stuff like the front of the Krsuty Krab, look like paintings. It’s quite lovely but it does look out of place, especially when compared to the first movie. However, it’s not an actual problem.

The visuals highlights are the brain part I mentioned, and one part that…well I’ll just say it involves a machine they use. They use some other animation styles, including stop motion! And that brings me to the CGI.

It was…really good! A lot of CGI in movies like this looks way too realistic and unlike the original characters. But here, it’s very cartoon-y and every moves like they should. There some’s cool stuff here, especially in the big action scene.

So don’t worry, the CGI is quite nice. There really isn’t a whole to say, really. Its updated TV animation but it still looks very nice, and the CGI is done in the manner it should be done.

On a visual level, it’s a decent treat. As a side note, don’t expect a lot songs like the first movie. We have three…and one is theme song, and one is in the credits. The only real song is a Teamwork song that’s kind of like the Fun song. It’s nice but not quite up to the quality we expect from Spongebob.

And that credits song is very catchy.

CHARACTERS:

Now for the other important element of this show. The main thing that makes it great. And I must say, it has its ups and downs here, but overall, these characters are great.

First up, we have Spongebob himself, voiced by Tom Kenny. He’s really likable here, with all the charm we know him for. He’s childlike but also quite mature compared to the first movie. People have complained they use the child version of him way too much in modern episode, and not his more mature side. Well, don’t worry cuz it’s in here and its good.

He’s so darn lovable here as he tries to get Plankton to help, and how he sees the good in everyone. He doesn’t learn a huge lesson but he works very well and he’s very likable. Not much to say, he’s just very good.

Then we have Patrick, voiced by Bill Faggerbake. He’s…interesting here cuz he’s kind of like his modern version. He’s kind of a prick here. Now, don’t worry it’s not as bad as it can be in some episodes, but he’s not hugely likable. In the first half, he has justification and it’s kept funny but at some points they push it.

He’s not in the movie as much compared to Plankton actually, at least until the lvie action part. Then he gets more prominent and aside from one…bad moment, he’s fine. However, he could have been a lot better, and he is the weakest character.

The next few characters are on the same level of importance so I’ll group them all here. We have Squidward, voiced by Rodger Bumpass, Mr. Krabs, voiced by Clancy Brown, and Sandy, voiced by Carolyn Lawrence.

Squidward could have a bit more to do outside of the live action stuff, but that may just be my inner Squidward fan talking. He has enough amusing moments, and there’s one final bit at the end with him that I loved. His presence was felt more in the first one, but he still worked here.

Mr. Krabs, like Patrick, is a bit jerky, but it works because he’s going crazy from withdrawal and he thinks his best worked turned on him. He could have learned the lesson too but he works better than I thought he would. Plus, he’s the first to suggest they get the “beached whale” to shore!

As for Sandy, I’m so glad they gave her a bigger role. She has a minor subplot in the animated parts that was really funny. She’s mostly there for fighting in the end but she’s still cool, and I love that her hero version is just a realistic squirrel.

Sandy and Squiddy could have had more to do in terms of development but they are still quite good. As far as minor characters, Mrs Puff has a (really funny) cameo, Larry is only in the credits and doesn’t speak, and Pearl only speaks in the credits.

And as everyone expected, we have Flatts in the credits. What, you all didn’t get hyped, hoping to see him? They could have used minor characters, but the ones they used were good.

We actually see more of the Bikni Bottomites here, and they are used very well. We even have a new character model, which was cool. And as I said before, MY LEG IS BACK! To make that better, Mr Lawerence actually did a fresh recording of it, and he sounds EXACTLY like he did back in Boating School, the gag’s first appearance.

Also, Karen gets a bigger role than I expected, and she was great.

So then we have Burger Beard, played by Atonio Bandereas. He’s that complex of a villain and the way he works into this is confusing, but he works. He’s a fun villain and Banderas is clearly having a lot of fun. Does he hold a candle to Plankton or Dennis? Lolno, but he’s still…okay, I suppose.

He has these seagulls with him that give us some dumb jokes, but also some funny jokes. And one of them is actually voiced by Barnacle Boy himself, Tim Conway. Granted, he only has one 1 line, but ah well. Kevin Micheal Richardson voices one of them and he’s always awesome to hear.

There’s one character that’s a spoiler, but I will say he was one of the best parts of the movie. He also gets involved in one of the…weirdest things I’ve ever seen in Spongebob. It’s near the end, and if you’ve seen the movie, you know what I mean. It’s amazing but…wow.

That brings us to my favorite character in the movie, Plankton, voiced by Doug Lawrence. Plankton is great in this movie. Not only is his as funny and over the top as ever, but his arc was done very well. We’ve seen this kind of thing before, but with this character, they took it up a few notches. He has some sweet moments, and like I said, there was more emotion than I thought there would be.

Plankton and Spongebob have excellent chemistry and they provide a lot of the best jokes as well as the heart. He does vanish when they get on the land, which sucks, but when he shows up, it’s amazing. And like I said, they did the obligatory status qou pretty well.

And that’s really it. Anyone else I missed is so minor they don’t matter, like Gary. There’s a gag about him being king of the snails that’s great (and hilarious when you remember he turned out to be the king of Bikini Bottom in Rule of Dumb).

Overall, the characters are good. Only like one gets huge development, but they are funny and likable enough to carry the movie. I wish Patrick was used better, and the characters had their own mini arc besides Sandy’s which really doesn’t amount to much. And yeah, a better villain would have made it better, but almost all the characters are perfectly in character, and the main two we focus on are awesome enough to bump this grade a bit.

Final Thoughts:

Is this a huge return to form for Spongebob? Maybe, we’ll have to see. Is it as good as the first movie? Not quite but I’d have to watch it a few more times. Is it a fun movie that was please fans? Heck yes!

Sponge out of Water is no masterpiece, with some underused characters, lack of subplots and other minor stuff, but it still has well executed live action scenes, good jokes, very likable characters, and a serviceable story.

It does feel like a longer episode of the show, but it has some epic stuff we rarely see, and it’s sadly better than most of the shows attempts at “specials”. As A spongeob movie, it works with every character (mostly) being great, and that classic feel we have come to expect.

There were only a few groan worthy moments, and you saw them in the trailer already. Any issues I have with it being a movie is made moot due to Hillbenburg’s involvement making it way more like the show we know love then some current episodes. And trust me, I’m not being too mean since Season 9 is a vast improvement so far. I’m just saying it’s nice to see some Classic-ish Spongebob again.

If you’re not into Spongebob, you may enjoy it but I’d say wait for DVD. If you just plain haven’t seen the show, this could be an okay introduction but again, watch some episodes first if you don’t want this to taint the show.

It’s not perfect at all, but the good stuff is so awesome it makes up for the flaws. I’m sure my opinion will raise a bit when I watch it like 40 times on DVD.

So yeah, check it out if you haven’t already. It’s worthy of the hype, and I can’t wait for new episodes to start up!

STORY: B

ANIMATION: B+

CHARACTERS: B+

OVERALL: B+

It was hard to decide the grade, but that’s what I’ll give it for now. It could change later on. There you go, my opinion is out there. There will be no Spoilers section cuz I will do a big review of it when it comes out on DVD, to go further into stuff I had to be vague on.

See ya.

DCOM Month 2: 200th Review Special!

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer
Jason goes to Hell
Hannah Montana: The Movie
Camp Rock
Santa Buddies
Billy Madison
Scooby Doo: The Mystery Begins
Mostly Ghostly
Spooky Buddies
Halloweetown High
Paranormal Entity
Paranormal Activity 4
Return to Halloweentown
Madagascar 3
Meet the Robinsons
Treasure Buddies
Green Lantern
The Change Up
Super Buddies
Inappropite Comedy
Fred Claus
Eight Crazy Nights
Good Luck Charlie: It’s Christmas
The Search for Santa Paws
Santa with Muscles
Santa Claus 3
A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas
New Year’s Eve
To Boldy Flee
Getaway
Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie
Planes
Dead Sushi
Grown Ups 2
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengence
Astro Boy
Robocop
After Earth
Taken
Color of Friendship
R.I.P.D
X-Men
Fat Albert
Yogi Bear
Underdog
The Muppets
The 41 Year Old Virgin who Knocked up Sarah Marshell and Felt Superbad about it
Thunderbirds
The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
The Smurfs 2
A Talking Cat?!
Batman Forerver
Rio
My Super Ex Girlfriend
Rise of the Guardians
Tinker Bell
The Lorax
Spider-Man 2
Identity Theif
The Suite Life Movie
Miss March
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
Fun Size
Cloud 9
Freddy Vs Jason
Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie
Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure
Radio Rebel
Transformers Prime Beast Hunters: Predacons Rising
A Fairly Odd Summer
Princess Protection Program
The Nut Job
The Adventures of Sharkyboy and Lavagirl
Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior
The Simpsons Movie
The Lone Ranger
Click
Epic
Bruce Almighty
Vampire Academy
Mostly Ghostly 2
When Good Ghouls go Bad
Scooby Doo Frankencreepy
VHS
VHS 2
21 and over
Dumb and Dumberer
Tinker bell and the great fairy rescue
Free Birds
Santa Paws 2
Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever
Saving Santa
The Ultimate Christmas Present
Taken 2
Zapped
Secret of the Wings
Blended
Zenon: Girl on the 21st Centry

These are the next 100 reviews.

Hello, Spongey here and welcome to my 200TH REVIEW! …Man, I never thought I’d get THIS far. !00? That’s insane. 200? NOPE NEVER. I still can’t belie I made it. I would have made it sooner without some of the dealys from last year but ah well.

Now, this is one interesting cuz it falls in the middle of a theme month. And that on purpose. I saw that my 200th review was coming after I set this month, but I don’t cancel it. Why?
Cuz I had a great idea to tie them in! How? Well, this month is being done due to the release of the 100th Dcom. So it makes sense my milestone to tie in to another mile stone. To make it extra special, I wanted to review Pixel Perfect, the 50th DCOM!

…But I couldn’t find it anywhere. Whoops.

I couldn’t turn back, so I’m doing the next best thing: the 10TH DCOM! Yeah, I know but live with it. It’s from 1999 and is one some of you may remember existing, but don’t’ recall anything about it. The director did a couple other forgotten DCOM’s, and the one writers did two of those Nick Original movies that no one remembers.

There’s no one hugely famous in it…but you may remember it when I say the name. I know nothing of the plot itself, so this will be a nice trip for all of is.

Yes, it’s not the best thing to do for a special, but I guess it’s better than being a fake clip show for 22 minutes and filling up the rest with a pirate facing celeb cameos. …Or something.

This, is Johnny Tsunami

Told ya you might recall it. Though that’s only cuz it had a sequel for some reason. Let’s do it!

The movie opens with our titular hero, Johnny, with his friends in his home in Hawaii, looking at photos of Grandfather in his prime. He was a surf legend who saved a group of survivors from a plane crash.

“That how he got his name: Johnny Tsunami”

Ah, he said it!

(That was fast)

Grandpa is still kicking and shows up to gives us some lame speech. We then cut to a scene of Johnny in a surfing completion cuz he’s a surfer too. Yep, it’s as predictable as I expected it to be. Oddly, odler DCOMS can be as cliché newer ones.

Speaking of which, his Dad misses it due to work. Johnny talks to him and we find out he does not approve of Grandpa due him being…uh..weird, I guess? He says something about him not having the best job or something, but that’s really it.

Something tells me we won’t find out, ever.

The next day, Dad announces that he is getting a job transfer, which means they are moving. Wow, another huge cliché. And we’re now only 8 minutes in! We barely know what our hero is like outside of being a surfer or whatever.
Is this gonna be the month of bad pacing? …Wait, a Surger who is forced to move the US and doesn’t it?

OH GOD IT’S AIRBORNE. Please tell me Jack Black is in this one too!

….Anyway, Instead of flipping out, he just leaves to sulk. And by sulk I mean surf. He gets another cheesy speech from Grandpa but this one is kind of decent. They even have a sweet bodning scene.

Then it immediately cuts to him in his new home in Vermont. Pacing? What is that? We get a scene of them checking things out, and after some other bits, we have Johnny at school. If you guess people don’t like ihm for no reason, then you are right!

Huh, we 2 films in a row with someone going to an environment they don’t care for, and being awarked in school. Weird. They mock the fact he’s Hawaiian cuz…we need more racist DCOM villains? Anyway, of course this is follow by the usual lunchroom scene. Speaking of stuff from Zenon, we have bad slang! Except its Hawaiian slang that either doesn’t exist, or no one actually says.

Later, Brett, the main…Alpha Dick (Male Alpha Bitch) challenges him to some skiing. They go skiing and spoilers, Johnny sucks at it. Man, even Zenon had the amazing slang to set it apart. He goes home after his bad first day and talks to his parents about it. They console him and the next day he tries to fit in a td better, at least with his clothes. It’s where he bumps into Emily, which means I can finally discuss her.

She’s friends with the main jerks, even though she’s nice and takes pitty on Johnny. Yep, same cliché that was ALSO in Zenon! And guess what?
She’s played by ZENON HERSELF!

I swear to god, I did not plan this. I had no idea she was in it until like now! It’s a coincidence major! She’s been in the movie a bit up to this point, but I had no way to get into her with it being clunky until now. Seriously, is this movie just gonna be Zenon without Space?

Also, her Dad is the principal and Johnny gets sent there due to violating dress code…even though he’s dressing semi fancy like everyone else is. ???
The principal is easy on him, making that scene totally pointless.

Later on the bus ride home, he makes a male friend named Sam. He’s from another school that looks down on this fancy school. Johnny talks to Zenon about this later and she says that those kids snowboard, while the fancy school kids ski.

There’s seriously a divide over winter sports? Also, another cliché but at least it’s not from Zenon.

Johnny wants to snowboard since he wants to be on a board, so he meets up with Sam to go snowboarding. After a montage of him bonding with Sam and learning to board, and we learn more about this weird feud. This whole mountain was owned by one guy and when he died, it was split fown the middle with boarders on one, and “Skies” on the other.

“That’s completely bogus”

Agreed.

They go to Sam’s home and we find out more about him, like the fact that he has a Dead mom. Their scenes together actually aren’t bad we Sam’s stuff is interesting and I’m way more interested now than I was before.

After more of that bonding, we cut to the next day as Johnny trains some more. Then Zenon pops up as she has secretly decided to take up boarding. She gets in danger and ends up dangling over the mountain. Sam tries to save her and ends up in the same situation. It’s up to Johnny to use his rather new skills to save them and spoilers, he does.

Actually he just gets help but its cool either way. This whole scene is cliché but enjoyable. This movie is improving quite a bit!

Everyone calms down and heads home. Johnny’s Dad hears about this and is not happy, as you might expect.

“You just can’t help acting like my father”

“Cool”

“I didn’t mean it as a compliment”

Ouch.

Johnny goes to his room and his parents have a conversation about all this. Dad considers Grandpa a beach bum rather than a role model, and Mom gives a speech to explain why Johnny idolizes him. Despite the rather preachy music, it’s a nice scene.

The next day, Johnny goes boarding with Sam some of his friends. They end up on a run usually populated by the fancy guys (not gonna even call them by their actual slang name) and this causes trouble with the Alpha Dick.

He and Johnny get in a fight but it stops before they can get caught. The word stills get around and Johnny ends up at the principal’s office. He’s not happy about this whole feud and doesn’t want him hanging out with the “Urchins”.

Yeah, he’s okay with this dumb thing too. Bah.

Johnny’s parents aren’t happy about this either. And now Johnny and Sam can’t hang out due to them being from different worlds that are feuding. Wow, there’s cliché I didn’t expect going in.

Anyway, it doesn’t even matter cuz Sam is actually moving. Wah wha. He’s moving to Iceland, by the way, hardy har haw. They say their goodbyes, and Johnny goes home where Dad tells him that Sam leaving is for the best. He also tells him to stay away with the Urchins and stop boarding. Man, he gets more cliché and douchey by the minute. Johnny gets mad and things get a bit sappy.

So Johnny makes the right choice and runs away with Sam, like they are lovers or something. And somehow, they got all the way to Hawaii by sneaking on a plane. I’m not even gonna ask. Dad quickly finds out about this and calls up Grandpa.

He says he’s not going to force the kids to go back until they are ready. He tries to calm Dad down but he’s still angry. Mom and Sam’s Dad are cool because at least they are in good hands. Mom tries to change Dad’s mom with another speech. She calls him out on being the way he is.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic?”

Agreed.
This is interesting stuff, but it does reek of the failings of the workaholic cliché, and it’s a bit overdramatic. Back in Hawaii, Johnny meets up with his old friends, who compare Johnny’s situation to that movie The Rock.

I love that a DCOM just compared itself to a Michael Bay movie. Also, his friends can’t act to save their lives.

That night, they all hang out so we can some more sappy stuff. Through some speeches, Johnny thinks that going back “home” would the best idea. It’s less rushed in context, but I can’t defend the fact that we cut to Vermont right after that!

Everyone just calms down instead of freaking about everything that happened. Johnny goes to bed and Dad talks to Grandpa. They finally talk about their differences, and Grandpa tells Dad to calm down a bit. He wishes he could have been a better father though, and they have a sweet little moment.

The next day, Johnny and Grandpa head out to go snowboarding. The Alpha Dick shows up and Johnny challenges his group to a race. If Johnny wins, they all must share the mountain. Looks like we have our climax!

However, Sam still has to move so he won’t be there. Johnny apologizes to Dad for what went down and Dad apologizes for what he did. Sorry things are getting a bit too thick for my snark. All I can say is that’s cool but maybe a bit overdramatic. Either way, it’s cute.

The next day is the big race. Johnny talks to Zenon who apologizes for….stuff. They settle their differences and yada yada. Then Sam shows up saying his Dad changed his mind and he’ll leave in the morning. So him moving was kind of pointless.

After that, it’s time for the film’s budget to show itself off with the big race! Spoilers, Johnny wins…after only like 2 minutes or so. What an epic climatic race!

Everyone celebrates, and Dad tells Johnny that if he wants, they can move back to Hawaii. But of course, he says no due to what he’s learned. Also, the whole Ski/Board divide meant be going away or something.

Then Johnny and Zenon hug. Yep, they had an epic complex romance! Eh, I guess that’s what the sequel is for. And of course, this is where they pan out and roll the credits.

Abrupt ending that weakens the film as a whole, blah blah, you’ve heard me bitch about this before. Let’s move on.

Final Thoughts:
Well, that made for a lame 200th review special. I celebrated with a film that didn’t give me too much to say near the end? I should have done the 1st DCOM…dangit, I hate It when things hit me when it’s too late!
Either way, this one is the same as Zenon. It’s one of the weaker classic DCOM’s, and in some ways it’s better and worse. It’s better in that it deals with more complex emotional stuff, while that was quite safe.

But it could be worse in that the clichés were more groan way and the drama was a bit too much in some parts. Also, the acting was worse, with some guys being decent and others being bad. So I supposed it events to it being about the same.

But I will say I had more fun with Zenon, even if it’s for all the wrong reasons. As for this one, it’s mixed for all those reasons. I wish I could like it more, but I also want to like it less. It’s very cliché and over dramatic but it’s got plenty of heart and some interesting ideas.

Everything here has been before, but some scenes are a bit more interesting. But even the good scenes can be over dramatic sometimes, thanks to the music and dialogue. I think the best element comes from Sam who is charming, but he helps to that dumb Ski/Board thing. That cliché stuff was at least fun to mock though, even if it didn’t add a whole lot to the movie.

On the bright side, Grandpa was a fun characrer, if a bit of a sue, and some scenes were quite suite. Depsite the abrupt ending, things ended okay. Overall, it’s very flawed but I can get through it okay.

Yes, it’s cliché and overdramtic but it can be sweet and tolerable. Weak compared to others? Sure, but despite my bitching, it’s…okay.
Not much else to say, really.

Grade: B-
 
Yeah, that’s my big special. Either way, I hope you enjoyed making it through 200 reviews with me! It was fun doing them all and I hope 250 is a bit better.

Next time, we jump forward a bit to look at one I’ve been meaning to watch for awhile..

See ya, and happy 200th review!

DCOM Month 2: Zenon

Get ready for some slang that is annoying major!

Hello, Spongey here.

Welcome my friends, to DCOM MONTH 2!

In July in 2013, I celebrated the release of Teen Beach Movie by looking at a bunch of Disney Channel movies. That helped me see some interesting ones, and since then, my feelings on them have either grown or gotten more interesting.

I’ve let it be known that I love a good DCOM, even when they are bad. Because they are always enjoyable, even if it’s weak.

And some are pretty amazing. So this year, I’d decided to dedicated another month to them. Why? Well, this month sees the release of Bad Hair Day, which, by the my count, is the, 100TH DISNEY CHANNEL MOVIE!

Yes, really. This counts 16 Wishes, and Hariet the Spy blog wars, which are considered official. However, that means they didn’t really bank on that fact since Disney sometimes doesn’t count them. The big 100 looks good, but it’s not exactly a special one.

The next are special, so why is this the 100th one? Ah well, it gives me an excuse to celebrate it. We have an interesting selection, starting with a classic.

This is an older DCOM from 1999 that is an oldie classic. However, TV Tropes also calls it So Bad It’s Good, and you’ll see why in a bit. Honestly, of the classic DCOM’s, this one of the lesser ones. It’s decent, but nothing hugely special in the story or character department.

Why is that? You’ll see. It’s based on some book I’ve never heard of, and the director did Don’t Look Under the Bed in the same year. That one’s way better.

The writer did Gotta Kick it up, Going to the Mat, and Cow Belles. Never seen them. But he did The Poof Point, which I have seen. And Phantom of The Megaplex..and Smart House.

Okay never mind, this one’s going to be great. I mean, it’s not like he also wrote A Troll in Central park!

…Dang it.

Either way, let’s see how this one turns out when he take off those nostalgic goggles. Let’s go back to the future, as seen by the late 90’s!

This, is Zenon: Girl on the 21st Century

The movie opens on a (horrible CGI) space station, in the year 2049, as our title heroine, played by Kristen Storms, wakes up. I’m pretty sure she was Bonnie on Kim Possible, which is hilariously different from this role.

We see that she’s the wacky type who gets up late, and has to rush to school. Yeah, you can tell from the start if you’ll like her or hate her.

She arrives at school, which is just one classroom with a big round table, and a hologram teacher. And we get the best part of any 90’s movie about the future: Hilariously wrong predictions!

“Perhaps the most remarkable thing about , is that unlike her Father, Bill, who also held the off at the close of the last century, President Chelsea Clinton, has taken a forceful and unwavering stand in favor of the harvesting of underwater vegetation as a major source of energy and food.”

Oh man, remember Clinton’s daughter taking over? That was great!

After class, Zenon finds out that her favorite band is coming to the station. Also, she has a friend played by none other than Raven Symone. She was Monique in KP which is also hilarious. That band is a boy band, and they will be the first band in space.

BOY BANDS IN SPACE. This movie is amazing.

Speaking of boys, some dudes like that band.

“Their songs have…melodies. Their songs are so anti matter you can understand their lyrics”

Wait, in the future, real songs have no melodies? …The future is DUMB. Also, there’s a contest where the winner gets to dance on stage with the band.
During lunch, some dude announces that some other dude is coming to inspect the space station. The place has been having problems lately and they gotta make sure if’s in shape so the dude won’t shut them down. He wants to show him how important their research is or whatever.

After that, we see the biggest …quirk of the film: Late 90’s Future slang!

“I’m in a hysteria mode major!”

“Windon would have to be a scrooge major to shut us down”

“We will blast him into orbital bliss major”

Yeah. Most of it is putting minor or major in front of words, alongside other minor stuff like …Zetis Lapitus, or however you spell it. Yes, it’s really lame and its part why this movie is hilarious for all the wrong reasons. It’s not exactly a disaster major, but it’s so…dumb.

Anyway, those some boys say everything on Earth is motivated by Money. He’s not wrong. Yeah, this isn’t quite a WALL-E situation, but this station was made so some could avoid the hustle and bustle of Earth, and some are not fond of Earth.

Zenon is defensive of it, of course. But she still has misconceptions about it which will lead to hilarity later. Moving on, Zenon is gonna go out space walking to get a look at this Solar flare that is happening. She is doing this after bedtime without parent permission.

You can fill in the blanks.

“Why be in the audience when you have the chance to be center stage?”

She goes out into the vast green screen of space, and she is immediately caught. Like, it doesn’t even take 2 minutes. And very unfitting happy plays during all this, kind of ruining the mood.

She is chewed out for this, as you may expect.

“I can handle myself, I’m 13”

“Then you better start acting like this”

I smell an obvious character arc!

After that cools down, we have a bit with Zenon and Raven with more bad slang.

‘Pressure major or what?”

I know only kids are saying this, but only kids say YOLO and it still annoys the crap out of me. Seriously, that phrase needs to DIE.

#swag.

Zenon meets Windom, the dude visiting them. Everyone likes him.

“There’s something that guy that totally shivers me out”

Spoilers, he’s totally not the villain.
That night, she meets Windom’s lackey. It’s late at night, and has an odd excuse for being out there.

“Aren’t you going upstairs?”

“Soon enough”

They couldn’t make the “twist’ more obvious if they tried. The next day, Raven says a friend told her that Zenon went out at night. I mention that cuz the friend is called Lutz the Clutz. As in, the nickname for Gary Lutz in Why I’m Afraid of Bees. Now that is creepy.

Zenon is determined to prove something creepy is going on, and I can see this going well.’

Mom thanks Zenon for mostly staying out of Windom’s way and not causing trouble.

“Sweat minor, Mom”

Okay, I’ve harped on movies for making upcoming plot points obvious but my god, this script has the subtly of a trainwreck. On a boat.

Anyway, it’s time for the announcement of the concert contest winner. Spoilers, its Zenon. Zenon is pretty happy but the movie randomly moves on to the Windom stuff cuz why not. That night, she snaps around and sees the lackey doing sneaky stuff, but when she tries to follow him, she gets caught.

They think she broke into this memory bank thing, and she says the lackey did but of course, they completely believer her story. …Nah, they think she’s full of crap. Naturally, they don’t even consider that she may be telling the truth since she’s not one to really lie but, anything get the
plot going.

“Silence major!”

Oh man, he’s doing it too?

Zenon is chewed out for this and Mom figures it’s time for desperate measures. Zenon is moving to Earth with her Aunt.

“We’re grounding you”

Boo.’

Also, that’s a bit drastic for a mistake like this but ah well. The acting is pretty good here, at least . After some moping, we have Windom announcing that he’s happy with what he has seen. So it’s a happy ending for everyone but Zenon.

Because of how he’s giving them money, they think Zenon was wrong.

“You must be inked out”

…Seriously?

She and Raven have a heartfelt goodbye , and we get an encouraging speech from Dad. It’s a pretty nice moment and our first bit of real emotion.
So she heads off and goes down to earth. As it turns out, 2049 looks a lot like 1999!

She meets her aunt who is very happy to see her. She’s not a fan of Space which doesn’t help to say the least. She and Zenon go out to eat and while the Aunt fails to be funny, an Alpha Bitch is snarking on her outfit because…she’s an Alpha Bitch. They just hate things for no reason.

Also, Aunt says this town is more simple and low tech than most cities. Yeah, they pretty much had to handwave the fact that they have no budget for a real future city. Nothing of note happens and they go head. Zenon comments that these flowers have no purpose for some future-y reason.
“Some things are just good for your Soul”

SQUIDWARD: Puh-lease. I have no soul. After a nice bit of heart, Zenon finds out her….future phone thing, has blocked her from calling anyone for her parents.

“One sin minor and my parents lock me in a black hole”

Uh, there’s no need for the minor. Also, only one sin?

EVERY WRONG WI-

Actually no, let’s just move on.

The next day, she goes to school and we get jokes about her being awkward. She fails to swim due to having no experience, fails at science due to how different things were in space, and fails to have lunch money due to them not paying with real money in space. Seriously? They didn’t give her any money?

“I think it’s pretty macro you grew up in space”

….No comment.

By the way, this dude is the one kind who doesn’t mind Zenon and yep, it’s the love interest. Oh, and she actually doesn’t know this piece of future slang. That’s weird major.

Dang it, now I’m doing it.

She blows him off and she goes home to see that the house has been ransacked. Dun dun dun. Zenon suspects Windom. We’ll see how that goes.
She looks it up on the most 90’s future computer ever, and she finds nothing. Later, she talks it up with that obvious love interest and they end up at his house/ranch thing that has some real horses. As opposed to…cartoon horses?

They have a nice sappy montage and they eat out that night. All of it is what you would expect: They bond and she sees how nice Earth is. That is until they spot Lutz, the lackey guy and try to figure out what is going.

The still unnamed friend hacks into the company’s data banks, cuz he’s conveniently smart, They find out they are having money troubles. Also, in an earlier bit, Lutz gave her an odd look when she pushed back her hair and revealed her earring, and they suspect he’s after some disk that’s in it or something like that.

They take a break to have a scene involving rain and more minor romance. The next day they inspect her earing disk and we find out the STILL unnamed friend guy hangs out with the Alpha Bitch and she is in his group of friends. Because reasons.

Eventually, they find out that the disk contains a virus. She saw Lutz messing with a disk thing that looks the same which means they plan to put the virus in the station’s main computer. Their tech nerd invented a thing that can get rid of the virus but they gotta go up and put in the big computer to stop it.

Wow, that was fast. Usually, it takes time to uncover the plan but this happens right’s away. The pacing is a bit rushed in some places in so far. They call up Zenon’s mom and try to warn them. Spoilers, they don’t believe her. Later, Lutz approaches them and asks for her earring.

“It wouldn’t look good on you”

As a side note, Lutz is kind of amazingly snooty with how he talks. She agrees to give it to him if he arranges a ride home for her. Well, that was easy…and stupid of Lutz. ..Until he IMMEDITLY betrays her upon getting it.

Nice.

Of course, she gave him a fake disc and Windom doesn’t react well to finding it out. His reaction is amazing. Meanwhile, Zenon does some hacking and contacts Raven. She tells them about what is going on. Now it’s up to her to help save the day.

After we FINALLY find out the (boy)friend’s name, Greg, our heroes head out and the Alpha Bitch shows up just to be called out by Greg. Yay?
They try to board a shuttle but they miss and things almost get sad until Zenon gets an idea. Margie the Alpha Bitch mentions that the boy band is going up to the station for the concert, so they can just hitch a ride with them. Figured they would be important,

The next morning, they head to the launch site and Zenon ends up getting on the thing due to her contest winner thing. Wait, no one told them that their winner was grounded?

The Aunt shows up, having figured out Zenon’s plan and she asks Windom where Zenon is. He says she isn’t here but then they spot her getting on the shuttle. They board it and it takes off before they can get to her. The bad guys get trapped in some small space so they aren’t a problem on the way there.

They get to the space station and they try to warn one of the head guys about Windom. But he pops up and claims she is causing the tech problems with the station. But they end up getting into a huge argument and the station is gonna go down in less than 15 minutes. Man, everything escalates quickly in this movie.

Everyone runs away and Zenon says she has the undo disc. She says that Windom is doing this to collect the insurance money. We never found this out until now so how did she? Also, that cliché?

Things pretty darn intense as she tries to fix the station. She does some fancy stuff, it counts down to zero and…it and works the virus is stuff.
…Wow, that’s anti climatic. Not the worst I’ve seen but weak. Windom is arrested and we cut to the boy band concert. Zenon has their next song dedicated to Greg, who vanished when she went to the shuttle, by the way, and has Raven dance instead of her as a present for…doing nothing.

With that, we get a song way too catchy for its own good. Zenon’s parents thanks for saving the day and every hugs it out and stuff. When the song ends, so does the movie.

…And now Cloud 9 has stiff competition for worst abrupt ending ever. She saves the dayl…and it ends. No pure hook up, no moral, no…anything! It just…stops!

Cloud 9 made more confused, while this hurts the films story a tad more. Either way, it’s lame. Either way, let’s wrap this up:

Final Thoughts:

Yeah, my opinion from earlier stands. It’s the weakest classic DCOM I’ve seen so far, but it’s still tolerable. My biggest issue is how…safe it is. There’s nothing really crazy about the story, and even by DCOM standars, it’s very predictable. On first viewing, I knew everything that was gonna happen. And I could excuse it if it was a bit better written, but it’s mostly average.

Everything goes through the motions, and no one really learns anything. Zenon sees that Earth is cool…and that’s it. She is brought there due to a misunderstanding, and their asses would be saved sooner if she stayed there. Thus, her earlier bad antics don’t really cause her to learn the lesson and all that.

The pacing is also rushed, with things happening out of nowhere, and everything being set up so obviously. Also, there’s terrible future slang
But despite all of that, it’s watchable. Mostly because there’s nothing painful the occasion nice moments pulls it through. Also, the acting is decent, with Zenon herself making er character a bit better. The character is typical and while annoying sometimes, it still likable enough.

The others are there. Raven is the friend, the villain is fun but generic, the Alpha Bitch is pointless, and the boyfriend is just there to be the boyfriend. Also, while the romance scenes are cute the romance itself is rushed and it barely has a pay off.

Most of the enjoyment comes from the flaws. It’s so hilariously cliché and typical that it’s fun to rip om. The future sang adds to it too. So I certainly enjoed it, but critically, it’s very average.

Honestly, even the weaker Modern Ones give me more to like crtically, even if this is more fun. I’m not sure why people haven’t realized how typical this one is, or how it got two sequels, but I guess everyone thinks differently.

Overall, it’s alright. It’s way more safe than it should be, but it’s got amusing moments. It may have weak writing but it’s not quite BAD, and my grade will be higher than ca let on.

But if you want something more interesting, there’s better. But you should watch it for the slang along. I hope the sequels end up being better.

Grade: B

Next time…wait…let me check..

Yep, I got it right.

Well, guys stayed tuned next time for …

MY 200TH REVIEW!

See ya.

Blended

Do you think you can blend Sandler with a funny script? Please?

Hello, Spongey here.

Well, it’s been awhile since we’ve heard from Adam Sandler on here, hasn’t it? Or at least, it’s been awhile since we’ve looked at a bad one. A couple months ago, I reviewed Click, which was very good.

It’s been an interesting journey with him on this blog, that much is sure. I’ve gone through some stages with him, to the point where I said some rather harsh words in my Grown Ups 2 review. There’s no doubt that he’s gone off the deep end, but I should probably give his next few movies a shot.
After all, I just got off praising a Tinker Bell movie. Anything could be good!

However, I am still allowed to be skeptical, and that’s the case for his latest Comedy, which we shall look at today.

Compared to other movies, this didn’t make too big of a splash. It came out, people disliked it, and everyone forgot about it. It made money but not a lot, and people were calling it bomb before it ended up making a lot of money. And that’s why you don’t count your chickens before they hatch, or whatever.

With a 14 on RT, it’s safe to say people did not like it. But I haven’t seen it on a lot of worst lists so…either this one isn’t bad…or I should be really afraid of Bayformers 4.

There isn’t. a whole to say so let’s go into the “Creative” team. The director brought us Click and the Wedding singer.

“That’s good”

He also did Zookeeper and The Waterboy.

“That’s bad”

We have two writers, one of which did nothing, and the other has worked on Jonas and Phil of the Future. …Not sure which one this film will emulate. But given who is in it, I can take a wild guess.

So will this be another Sandler dud, or will it ended up being passable in any way? There’s only one way to find out…

This, is Blended

The movie opens at Hooters. Wow, product placement AND exploitation of the female body, and we’re not even a full minute in, counting the logos!

“This is the first date I’ve been on since the divorce and the guy brings me to a Hooters”

This lady is Lauren, played by Drew Barrymore. Something tells me this won’t be as good as Wedding Singer or 50 First Dates. Just a hunch. She’s on a date with Jim, played by Adam Sandler and she doesn’t like it.

He’s barely paying attention to her and her a closer releatship with the waitress. Yep, he’s a lovable scamp already! No, we’re not playing the drinking game again but you should have taken 3 shots already. We’re not even 3 minutes in yet

They try to hit it off, but naturally, everything goes wrong because Sandler is a dick.

“Out of the many possible reasons, what’s the one your wife left you for?”

“Cancer”

…Ouch.

“Sorry for assuming you were divorced”

“I assumed your husband shot himself, so we’re even”

And all his likability goes out the window. Yay!

Sandler decides it’s not worth it and just leaves. Lauren bitches about this to her friend. They share some dumb banter and make topical jokes about Kim and Kanye. Then Lauren starts randomly crying to get some emotion out of us. And it’s interrupted by a dumb joke where some people seem them hug and think they are…yeah.

“Instagram! Facebook!”

…Now that is just lazy.

Meanwhile, Jim is talking to his friend about this while at his job at…Dick’s sporting goods. Product placement and an immature joke. We’re only 9 minutes.

Oh, and his friend is played by Shaquille O Neal. Seriously.

Jim is visted by his daughter, Larry, played by Bella Thorne. I’ve been over this a few times but seriously, she got the short end of the stick here.
Her name is actually Hilary and Jim calls her Larry…cuz he’s a dick. She has a tomboy look so of course people mistake her for a man.

Back with Lauren, we see her with her Ex-Husband, played by Joel Mchale. Sigh.

Needless to say, he’s a bit of deadbeat Dad and he’s also a dick. We cut to “Larry” (it’s faster to type) as she is …stuffing her bra. And that is something I did NOT need to see. Thanks, guys.

And then Larry accidently comes in and sees this.

“I didn’t see anything!”

‘Thanks a lot!”

“I mean, there was plenty to stuff to see”

How long is this movie? Over 100 minutes? Ugh.

Anyway, Sandler has two other daughters, both of which prove how great of a father he is. One of them is named “espen”. As in, ESPN. Why. After a scene with Lauren that doesn’t matter, we get a scene of Sandler talking to his smallest daughter so we can get some saccharine shit.

Also, they are watching Tiny Toon Adventures because reasons

And in the next scene, we have Sandler getting Tampons for Larry. Ouch, I think I just got major mood whiplash. Naturally, this scene involves more product placement.

While there, he bumps into Lauren. They have a dumb scene regarding prono mags and tampons (Don’t ask) and then ten second Tom from 50 first dates makes a cameo.

…Wait, what.

“I’m Tom”

“You told me that”

“I’m tom!”

…Remember how that Bum from Happy Gilmore was in Jack and Jill? He had the same name and was played by the same actor? Yeah, I looked up and he is played by the guy from 50 first dates…who also plays the bum I just mentioned.

…Are they trying to ruin every Adam Sandler movie I actually like? I’m serious, that is ten second tom there. So we’ve had that guy from Happy in Little Nicky, that from Waterboy in Little Nicky, the bum from Happy in Jack and Jill, and now Ten Second Tom in Blended.

Yeah…I don’t like the idea of a Happy Maddison Universe. Mostly cuz I don’t want a world with like 40 Adam Sandler’s running around.

Anyway, back to the movie, the two bond a bit and waste good chemistry on bad writing. They stop bonding and start arguing, making me wonder how the hell they will get together in the end. Oh wait, this is a badly written Comedy, of course, it’ll make no sense.

Sandler shows up at her house the next day, cuz their credit works were accidently switched at the store. Also, that lesbian joke from earlier returns and it’s not funny the 2nd time…and 3rd time. The friend shows up, having broken up with her boyfriend, whose name is…Dick.

God Damn it.

She found out that Dick has 5 kids, so she broke up with him. He wanted her to go on this big vacation so they could all bond, and she didn’t want that. Also, Dick is Sandler’s boss because of course he is.

Being the lovely man he is, Sandler asks Dick if he can use the vacation instead, since he got so upset he canned it for everyone. At the same time, Lauren tells the friend she could use the vacation instead.

“Wait tell I tell the kids!”

“Wait til I tell the boys”

Oh, things are gonna wacky due to a plot contrivance that wouldn’t fly in real life, up in here!

“We’re going to Africa!”

Oh, this is one of those Sandler movies. The one that’s an excuse to go on a vacation. Yeah

We cut to Africa as our heroes arrive for a few weeks full of unfunny stereotypes!

They bump into each other right away. Like I said, it makes no sense how this happened, since Dick would know if his vacation is being used while he’s giving it to someone else. Anyway, Sandler and Lauren assure the kids that they are not together.

“I wouldn’t want to wake up to this face everyday”

“You would be lucky to wake up to this face every day, my mom is hot!”

“…That’s just wrong”
Yes. Yes it is.

After…that, they go their room, which turns out to the romance suit. As it turns Dick was gonna use this to propose to Jen until the bitch ruined it.
“A family honeymoon, a familymoon”

Familymoon was actually the…2nd title, as it was called Blended but they changed it to that and changed it back when they realized how dumb it sounded.

The room also has a stripper pole. …Yeah. So they are now in big family moon and meet with another couple at dinner.

“We welcome you to our 4th annual Blended Familymoon week”

Roll credits! ….Please?

After a montage of lame jokes, they unwind that night. The next day, they all get ready for one long day full of bad jokes. And sure enough, the next bunch of minutes is wasted on a bunch of cheap Africa based gags. We’re in the part of the movie with no plot, aren’t we?

The barrage has Sandler being terrible, but the movie thinking its funny or whatever. It’s everything you expect at this point. Also, they introduce this subplot were Larry has a crush on this dude and is too shy to say anything and whatever. Lauren suggest she actually start dressing like a girl so he will notice her.

Yeah, that gag about her looking like a dude got really old and I spared you from most of it. That night, she dresses up and now that she’s conventionally attractive, she can get her man!

When it shows walking towards him, it has this one song, when it cuts to him, it has a love song, and when it cuts to Sandler…they play It’s the end of the world as we know. Okay, that was funny…even if it was in the trailer.

By the way, we are now one hour into the move. ONE HOUR. And barely anything of substance has happened for most of it. The movie is about 110 minutes long, by the way.

Sandler gets pissy about Hilary dressing up and everyone leaves out of awkward-ness. Heh. But eventually they calm down and start to bond a bit. Then some dudes show up and say they are blending, and it’s really weird and stupid.

So they stop talking and we get another montage of them dicking around with dumb Africa jokes full of stereotypes. I’m reminded of another Adam Sandler movie with a paper thing plot and lots of dicking around….as in ALL OF THEM.

Through this dicking around, Lauren and Sandler supposedly grow closer and all that good stuff. Honestly, I’m getting a point where there’s nothing to talk about. We keep bumping into long sections where nothing really happens. Stuff does happen, but it’s nothing really important. Just dumb stuff that isn’t funny.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the characters were likable, the humor was good, or the plot wasn’t lame and paper thin. But all those things are sadly true.
At least our lovely couple is kind of bonding during this section, so there is some point to it. Even if it’s not funny. The sad thing is, the actors do have some chemistry (they proved that in two movies already) but the writing doesn’t really help. The stuff they are given isn’t that funny and half of this couple is terrible. Bah.

After that stuff, we have a “sweet” scene with Lauren and the youngest daughter, while Sandler takes a piss outside. How lovely. The next day, there’s even more dicking around and pretty much the exact same crap I’ve been talking about. Another thing that make this better is the film being shorter and not close to 2 hours!

That night, Lauren comes in looking pretty and they do the exact same music joke from before, but with different characters. Great, you just ruined the funniest joke in the movie. They ruin it further by cutting to some random chick and playing I Kissed a girl. Sigh.

“It’s the final night of our Blended family experience here in Africa”

Thank god.

Something actually happens when Sandler sets up a real date with Lauren to make up for Hooters. They hit off this time but Sandler backs out of a kiss at the last minute. And that awkwardly ends their date…as well as the vacation.

Yep, we cut to Lauren back in America with not much of a transition. At least Just Go With It stayed in Hawaii until the very end. But ah well, at least that minute we’re almost done. Please?

Sandler tells Shaq he just couldn’t get the courage to kiss her, and he tells his kids there’s nothing going on. They tell him to go for it, as they will be fine with a new mommy. So he goes out to get her back.

That was quick.

He gets to her house, but of course, she got back together with Joel Mchale. The dick who had no redeeming value when we last saw him. Because we need a contrived 3rd act conflict. Sandler drives away sadly, and Lauren arrives home later.

Joel hits on Lauren and she isn’t biting. Yeah, he was kind of lying to Sandler. He was actually just babysitting the kids while she was out. Wow, now it’s even more contrived. He claims that he’s sorry for being a dick, and he wants another chance.

She’s still not biting though, and tells Joel to be at one of her kids games on Saturday to prove he wants to be a good father. That night, Sandler and the youngest daughter have another really saccharine scene about their dead mom or whatever.

We cut to the baseball game as Joel has failed to show up. Yawn. Sandler on the other hand, does show up. I think this scene exists to turn this into a sports movie for some reason. Spoilers, the son wins the game. A shocking twist, I know.

Sandler talks to Lauren and she explains that Joel was full of crap. Sandler says he’s ready to take it to the next level now. She says yes and they kiss. This is supposed to be this big epic moment but it feels so…rushed and obligatory. Like this whole romance, it feels slapped on and lazy.

“You know something? Your Mom is hot”

I’m Glad that joke came back.

With that, everything celebrates while those random dudes sing us out. Yep, the credits roll. That was…a really lame and rushed ending, even by Adam Sandler standards. We set through at least 1 hour and 40 minutes of that just to get the exact ending we expected, and it’s really lazily written.

Whatever, at least it’s finally over.

Final Thoughts:

You know which Adam Sandler film this reminds me of? Just Go With it. In both movies, we have a really contrived plot, a random trip to an exotic locale as an excuse for Sandler to on vacation, and most of both films are spent dicking around, only to have a very weak Non-endng.

But hey, Blended isn’t nearly as painful as that one. The only reason I haven’t reviewed it because Film Brain did a pretty good job with it. But I’ll give JGWI this: It felt a tiny bit different from the Sandler films that came before.

The same cannot be said for this one. My god, this was so much worse than I thought it would be. I mean, it’s mostly a mediocre type of bad, but that actually makes it worse. As bad as Sandler last few films were, at least they were slightly different. JGWI had Nick Swardsen at his most annoying, Jack and Jill had Sandler as a woman, That’s My Boy had pedophila, Grown Ups 2 had no plot yet too much plot, and so on.

This…had Africa. And it wasted Bella Thorne and Joel Mchale. That’s about. Seriously, the premise isn’t interesting in the slightest, and they don’t even fill it with dumb gimmicks. There’s the stuff with Sandler’s daughters being like boys, but that’s about it.

This film just felt really empty. It has all the Sandler hallmarks but the plot is lazier than ever. At least the Grown Ups films were kind of interesting with their lack of plot. This one, not much. This plot was so cliché and that even the writers seemed to give at by the end.

Now, all the movies I just mentioned are much worse (Well, I assume that’s My Boy is. I still gotta see that one)., and this one had a few amusing moments, and it’s especially in terms of humor…but in a way that makes it worse. Those films at least try to be memorable, but I wouldn’t remember most of the movie if I didn’t just review it.

The story is a joke. There’s really nothing to it: Some douche and a chick have a bad blind date, but through some stuff they end up on a vacation together and they fall in love. That’s it. There’s no gimmick, it’s just that. That could have worked if they tried to write a good romance, but they didn’t.
It’s very basic and they really have nothing special together. The actors do well together but the writing ruins it quite a bit. Once again, Sandler is an unlikable douche whose change of heart is forced. Lauren is okay but there’s really special to her either.

The rest of the character exist for bad jokes about that’s it. Larry’s subplot goes nowhere, the boys do nothing, the other girls are lame and one exists for bad sweet moments, Joel is a dick and that’s it, and there are no other notable characters.

They didn’t even bother forcing Nick Swardsen on us. Seriously, this is th first Sandler film in the last few years to not have one his biggest buddies in it. …Honestly, It feels kind of empty.

The humor isn’t the worst, but a lot of it is so typical. There’s nothing new to be found here. It’s the same stuff as before but with a weaker plot. The characters are lame, the plot is dumb, and it’s just …bad. It’s a weak kind of bad, but it’s still bad.

It’s also way too long. Just Go With It was more painful with it’s length, but this is almost as bad. It somehow feels too short, with nothing going on, but too long …cuz nothing is going on.

I should just write it off as the dull kind of bad Sandler film, but I’m a lot angrier than I should be. I think it’s because it doesn’t even try to be memorable. At least his past few movies have tried to be memorable for any reason.

This is just….there. It’s bad. It’s not the worst, but it really is. And the other Sandler trademarks, such as product placement, does not help either.
And seriously, what was Ten Second Tom doing here?

Grade: D-

Well, that didn’t go well. …Hey…next month is February! You know what that means!

…

ITS’S…DCOM MONTH 2!

See ya.