[Count using SpongeBob pictures!]

[Count using SpongeBob pictures!]

Similar to my last thread, post an unedited SpongeBob screencap representing a number in some way. Let’s see how high we can get.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

@SICKO MORE has pointed out an error in the list! Turns out I forgot to tally BeachBob's 21 points for the episode Library Cards, pushing it several spots up. Consider this an official addendum.

58. Library Cards, 48 points

3 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #5 @BeachBob95) (NEW)

 

These are the new rankings for #58 onward:

58. Library Cards

59. The Battle of Bikini Bottom

60. Tentacle-Vision

61. The Sponge Who Could Fly

62. Restraining SpongeBob

63. Good Neighbors

64. New Fish in Town 

 

Assuming this is the only error left, that marks the REAL end of this list! Now go back to submitting for best list.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

2. "Mr. Krabs, if my poopy baby isn't welcome here, then I'm not staying either!"

Squid Baby, 543 points

31 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #1 @Wintermelon43) (+4)

Coffee: I can’t think of any Spongebob episode that I’m against it’s existence as much as I do for Squid Baby.There’s a lot of dumb episodes,there’s a lot of boring episodes,there’s a fair chunk of unoriginal ones,but Squid Baby is an episode that I legit call downright offensive alone for the fact that it’s exists.Yes,The Main Drain and Truth or Square are both still my least favorite episodes for begin more boring/lazier,but it’s going to be a lie if I’m gonna say that they destroyed my passion for the show more than Squid Baby did once.Just look at the premise alone:"After a head injury,Squidward became a Baby",as someone who thinks that any premise shouldn’t be judged without execution,I cannot imagine how such idea can fit into lore and universe of Spongebob even for a seasons those times.Unfortunately,confusing premise didn’t delivered awfulness of the execution even for the half...

Let’s start with an sea-elephant in the room,yes,whatever happened to Squidward in episode for the whole time is an portrayer of a head injury that is a legit trauma in real world.This is a very horrible,horrible injury that can stuck with person for the rest of his days without letting any peace or joy in life.By episode’s logic,pointing out that and made character suffering because of that is automatically funny and worthy for repeating that for the rest of episode.And now it’s not a problem that Spongebob is a kids show and it’s can’t take such an serious topics,and make jokes out of it either,but it’s not a deal if you have a TV-Y rating or TV-MA,this attempt at jokes are absolutely lazy at worst,unforgivably sadistic at worst.As much as I despise term as "Squidward Torture Porn"and second graders who use it nowadays,this episode is an exception of the rule.Episodes like Boating Buddies or Ink Lemonade also based on just bushing Squidward from all sides because "lol fuck off and laugh",but violence in those episodes at least felt cartoony on any extent,in Squid Baby,all of what happened with Squidward feels like an actual pain and suffering that can be taken by people with the same injury,witch is absolutely disgusting and intolerable on universal degree.But even without this fact,even if you don’t want to believe that episode offended people with mental challenging problems,it’s still the grossest episode that show has as for date,the entire episode filled up with a rivers of saliva,obnoxious crying over and over again,and let’s not forget a close ups of a poop diaper for a minute.Even Pet or Pests with it’s horrendous animation never made me feel that disturbed and aggravated as Squid Baby ever did.

But believe me or not,Squidward isn’t the only one who was braindead for the entire episode.Because we also have Spongebob and Patrick on the stage as well.We have a ton and a little wagon of episodes where those two characters are flanderizated as sin,but Squid Baby is the first,and only legit time when I can safely say that both acting like a complete retards.In the good seasons,those characters had a vibe of a child,but they mixed up with that a balance between some smart and adequate decisions for not making everything awkward all around.But here,for what balance we can even thinking for?!Even before we get into Squidward’s injury,the beginning of episode is about Spongebob and Patrick playing with toddlers’ toys as juvenile,sickening,jarring as possible for episode...but it’s not even the worst thing that they did here.In defense(for some nonexistent reason)people say that the fact Spongebob and Patrick take look for Squidward is a good quality and made episode "not as bad",and I don’t buy this argument at all.All of what both did is just making situation even worse than it was before and begin ignorant dumbasses when something horrible happened to Squidward once again.

And for the cherry of the cake here let’s not forget how despicable Mr Krabs was in episode,we have an Ol’ long history of this character begin a cheap scumbag,even back in a very early seasons,he was over-exaggerated with his love of money and treatment for employees,sometimes it was funny,sometimes it was annoying,sometimes it was Squid Baby.This is the biggest middle figure that snow pulled out with how Mr Krabs doesn’t care for situation that character stuck into,he clearly was warned that Squidward has a head injury but he doesn’t give a shit at all and his pure answer ended up begin "I don't care if he has seaweed-for-brains.He needs to be behind that register.",or "Oh,that's it! Get that poopy baby out of me restaurant!".This is the cross the line even for such a greedy character as he ever was.

But apart from abysmal idea,sense of humor and characters.I even forget that this episode has just as abysmal substance,I’m hate to saying this,but even Spongebob You’re Fired has a better plot.There’s no such a thing as a development of situation or journey from point A to point B,all of what nasty nightmare that been created in episode doesn’t goes nowhere and solved itself just after episode tired of repeat of smashing Squidward’s head for the billion time.Oh,and by the way,as you could get,that all of those gags that I pointing out are slapjack based,even without the fact how painful context of episode is,the visual humor here is incredibly poorly crafted.And that’s a really big problem with 9a as a whole though,a very major chunk of episodes tried having a slapstick humor despite having a terrible looking animation,and all of those attempts ended up begin lazy,predictable and simply boring.Slapstick in Squid Baby is definitely not an exception...actually no I’m lying,slapstick of this episode is in 200 times more painful,and even besides that,dragging out so badly that made Sportz’s visual humor looks like a pinnacle of comedy.Watching how Squidward’s head gets hurt with non a single dose of creativity or variation is definitely was a bad decision of the crew.The only joke in the entire episode that isn’t about Squidward begin hell out punished without any excuse is my leg reference,but even that didn’t worked because episode didn’t even bothered to add character that actually say that line all the time,witch is another example of how 9a doesn’t cared about quality once again.

This episode is just never should’ve been made,I can’t think of any way how episode with this premise can works out well.Even Truth or Square and The Main Drain both had potential to be decent if not great if they would’ve get any effort back then,even Spongebob You’re Fired had a bigger chances to be good than Squid Baby ever did.And the final result is just proved my statement right,everything that episode does is offensive to look at,from the awful structure,to awful characters and sense of humor that it’s bring to this universe.I think that I’m not going to have any surprises or shock if I going to visit Darknet one day after surviving Squid Baby,because god damn,this is the only truly episode of Spongebob that I can’t physically to watch fully without turning off it several times in the row.Begin said,just fuck it so much and I really,really hope that I’m not going to see even a minute of this abomination for the rest of my life.It’s only 3th worst on my list,but I have a feeling that one day it’s going to throw away The Main Drain from number one spot and dominated it for awhile,because it’s give me the most aggravating though than any other Spongebob episode ever did with every new second.

1. "Ya know, kid, your body isn't the problem. It's your heart. You deserve what you've gotten."

Stuck in the Wringer, 629 points

36 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 3 #1's @Steel Sponge @Larry the Cucumber @AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH) (0)

OWM: The choices this episode makes have got to be some of the worst and most convoluted in series history. Patrick especially has been completely bastardized. He starts off the episode as a plot device by immediately making the situation worse for no reason whatsoever. I understand he’s TRYING to be good but I just can’t bring myself to enjoy him at all here. He seems to have no basic understanding of SpongeBob’s situation at all throughout the episode and seems to only exist here to make it more miserable. The entire carnival sequence is complete torture because it’s just several minutes of him being a self-serving asshole. The supportiveness he showed earlier has been completely thrown out in favor of this bizarre, selfish and ignorant asshole version of himself. And of course, it leads into the infamous meltdown by SpongeBob, which is completely done wrong for a multitude of reasons. Why is SpongeBob melting down on Patrick shown as wrong? Why are the Bottomites shunning him completely despite having no clear understanding of the situation? And most importantly, why are we supposed to believe them? We just spent the last five minutes watching Patrick look out for himself only and we’re supposed to believe SpongeBob’s heart is responsible. Later we get scenes of Patrick alone, which are completely worthless and only exist to pad the runtime. They’re not funny since it’s him alone and he’s still being a petty little bitch. And lastly, we get “I guess crying does solve your problems after all!” What kind of a moral is that? What are we supposed to take from it? Are there kids out there getting glued in wringers? Is it supposed to be some sort of meta moral not meant to be taken seriously? Then why are you presenting it like it’s not? Stuck in the Wringer is an episode with no characters. Instead, it has mean-spirited, bitter and infuriating plot devices. Stuck in the Wringer is an episode with no story. Instead, it has a bizarre, confusing and poorly structured mess that only exists to make people mad. Stuck in the Wringer is an episode with no jokes. Instead it has scenes of SpongeBob getting handicapped. Stuck in the Wringer is an episode with no quality, and I'm glad to see it's defended its title for the second year in a row.

 

Well, this marks the end of our list. Once again I thank everybody who submitted for this as well as all the people who contributed commentary, liked these posts, and watched the points grow from 68 up to 629 (!). As my parting gift to you, here are both Google Docs I used to make the list and tally up points. You may enjoy them freely and grill me if I made any mistakes. Have fun! Now go submit for best list.

FULL LIST 2019:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vkN_vTCbYWlrZcxL2tWFgA-eQyRRa9SwohCEeFJnI3Y/edit?usp=sharing

ALL SUBMISSIONS 2019:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ESmzD1TXVkn0lA9QnZWQyuhAi435MIjSkuDx14oX-FY/edit?usp=sharing

BEST LIST 2019 (DON'T FORGET TO SUBMIT):

 

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

Threshold this year for Dishonorables was 40 points, a number I probably shouldn't have given out at all. Oh well.

Dishonorable Mentions 2019

63. New Fish in Town, 43 points

7 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #7 @BeachBob95) (-4)

62. Good Neighbors, 44 points

4 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #5 @4EverGreen) (-18)

61. Restraining SpongeBob, 44 points

6 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #9 @OWM) (-11)

60. The Sponge Who Could Fly, 46 points

3 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #4 @dmandamanAndKnuckles) (NEW)

59. Tentacle-Vision, 46 points

5 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #6 @PEPSI✭MAN) (-25)

58. The Battle of Bikini Bottom, 48 points

2 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #1 @Cosmix humungosaur) (NEW)

57. Dear Vikings, 52 points

6 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #5 @Night-Waker) (NEW)

56. InSPONGEiac, 54 points

3 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #4 @Sweat) (+1)

55. Squirrel Jelly, 54 points

3 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #1 @Terminoob™) (NEW)

54. Plankton's Regular, 57 points

5 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #5 @Clappy) (-6)

53. Hide and Then What Happens?, 57 points

9 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #15 @CakeCup) (NEW)

52. A SquarePants Family Vacation, 60 points

4 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 2 #6's @The Helpful Mexican @MarcoGagFanatic) (NEW)

51. Doodle Dimension, 60 points

5 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #3 @Terminoob™) (NEW)

 

Well that's all of them. Better luck next time for these episodes! They may show up in 2021's list. Get ready for our final two episodes tomorrow!

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

4. "It is a high honor to be chosen for the Bikini Bottom Men's Chorus, and you are not going to keep me from performing my Grand Solo!"

 

Choir Boys, 489 points

31 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #1 @El Jacko) (+8)

OWM: Everything and everyone in this episode is pretty damn bad. My main problem with it is how badly paced it is. The opening is three straight minutes of pure filler that adds nothing to the episode and can easily be cut out. Do we need to focus on Squidward’s awful singing in the shower? Do we need to see Squidward painstakingly get dressed? Does Squidward have to restate himself to SpongeBob again? I actually had to rewatch this episode in double speed so I wouldn't get instantly bored. And this continues later in the episode too. They devote several seconds to unfunny, drawn-out scenes of both SpongeBob and Squidward clearing their throats. The designs are awful too. The grotesque faces and expressions from SpongeBob like his droopy nose, and overall general appearance don't help this episode's standing at all. The way he’s written here also implies this extremely sad and abusive relationship with Squidward as well. The pothole scene is actually intended to be malicious harm from SpongeBob, hence the line “Now I have a captive audience.” Him calling Squidward an “inspiration and great friend” comes across as a big insult because of that. I certainly didn't expect this episode to rise as high as it did, but thinking about it now I'm not so shocked.

3. "I've lost it. I can't tell what's real anymore!"

Ink Lemonade, 494 points

27 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 3 #1's @SICKO MORE @4EverGreen @Sweat) (+1)

4EverGreen: One of my biggest regrets the last time we did a "Worst of" List, is that I didn't change my list in time, to include this episode. But the episode was released on the day of the deadline, I didn't want to go through the hassle of changing my list, and I thought, there was no WAY that episode would even SCRATCH the surface! Needless to say, I learned my lesson about underestimating how much one single episode could be HATED! Personally, I have nothing but absolute fury and contempt for this episode! How this episode ever got the green light, let alone, fully animated and made, is beyond me! It's like, Kaz was HONESTLY sitting around and thinking: "If I'm going to do something WORSE than Boating Buddies, I'm REALLY going to have to apply myself!" And this is the end result!

All you need to know about the episode, is that it is filled with NOTHING but Patrick finding ways to SCARE Squidward, in order to get his ink, for his lemonade! And nearly all of the ways in which Patrick does this, are gross, sick, cruel, sadistic, and flat-out uncharacteristic Patrick behavior at its absolute WORST! And the worst part of it is, the Bikini Bottom citizens actually LIKE the lemonade, until they find out it comes from Squidward, the hypocrites! And Squidward doesn't even get any consolation in this episode, because he eats a cookie filled with spider eggs! In my personal opinion, this is by FAR, Kaz's WORST episode EVER! Enough said, true believers!

 

The end is coming fast. Stay tuned for Dishonorable Mentions tomorrow, and our grand finale on Wednesday!

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

6. "Don't worry, little worms. I know a place where we can go to find homes for every single one of you."

Pet or Pests, 464 points

26 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 3 #1's @The last carotte @Loopers @CakeCup) (+5)

Carotte: I won't say much about this episode because it's basically every Season 6 flaw in one episode. There is literally nothing that I can find decent. It doesn't have a plot and everything that happens is boring and gross. First of all, the animation is at its worst and the designs are so ugly. It's the worst SpongeBob design in the whole show mainly because of the overuse of Springer cheeks. Even the worms are gross. Also, there are some gross-out moments that are really disturbing to me, for example that birth scenes. I hate how the baby worms throwing up is a running gag in this episode. Speaking of gags, the doorbell scene sure was a NICE attempt to add comedy. It lasted like 30 seconds and the doorbell didn't even sound like a real doorbell so it becomes an annoying scene. Oh yeah and Larry was unusually jerkish and I suspect he was pretending not to know SpongeBob. He tried to eat the worms because he didn't give a f about nothing! I won't comment on every scene because they're all basically bad at best. This is an episode that deserves more hate than Squid Baby tbh. Enough said!

5. "Well, actually, SpongeBob, uh, there's two words. And they're not very good."

SpongeBob You're Fired, 471 points

25 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 5 #1's @SquiddyFace @Klu @Trainman2002 @dmandamanAndKnuckles @Matt0417) (0)

More: SpongeBob You’re Fired was the episode I crowned as my least favorite episode of the series. I’ve said that confidently almost since I first saw it. This year a peculiar Season 11 episode pushed it to #2 but in retrospect I don’t think I made the right call. Calling this the most hated episode of the series by the general public, if not the most hated episode in any series, would be right. The reviews of this episode have more passion and feel more like SpongeBob than this. 

The way the story progresses is absolutely atrocious. The turning points are all based on ridiculous contrivances like Mr Krabs firing SpongeBob for a mere NICKEL. Which is stupid and makes the ending of the Krusty Krab going kaput predictable from 20 minutes away, as SpongeBob’s the only thing keeping the Krusty Krab alive in the first place. In other cases, they contradict everything that happened in the episode beforehand. The stupidest part of the episode is when all the food mascots come back to attempt to kidnap SpongeBob... for the fact that his patties are delicious. Even though all of them threw the patties on the Filthy floor only minutes earlier. The worst part is that those two things along with SpongeBob moping around and crying the ENTIRETY of the episode are the only things resembling a plot or stakes. Every single part of the episode is painfully long and only serves to waste the viewers time. Ink Lemonade might be horrible but at least it grabs your attention. I could speed up SBYF to eleven minutes and everything would still go on for twice as long as it should. Hell, I could cut out everything between SpongeBob getting fired and him getting re-hired and and that would have zero impact on the story. 

Every single character here is a shell of their former selves that makes the character in Atlantis SquarePantis look like they have personality. Mr. Krabs is excruciatingly cheap. Sandy is a messed up scientist only conducting experiments for the fun of it. Patrick is a total bum and a terrible friend for promoting his lifestyle to SpongeBob. And SpongeBob is miserable to watch as his one biggest trait of optimism and happiness is completely missing. At the very least, in other terrible episodes, these characters at least interacted and were fleshed out enough to make a story out of. This has nothing. 

The episode steals elements from dozens of episodes from Karate Choppers, to Le Big Switch, to Welcome to the Chum Bucket, to Model Sponge. It didn’t even have to be this unoriginal. The scene where SpongeBob creates Snail-Po makes me think of an alternative universe where SpongeBob can create a new business and find a niche success outside the Krusty Krab... oh wait that’s the plot of Patty Hype. Not that it matters as the Snail-Po scene is abandoned within seconds and has no impact on the episode at all. I still stand that I could create a clip show of past episodes strung together to resemble SBYF and it would still be more competent than it ever would be. 

Possibly even worse than that is how this episode tried to be somewhat political in its depiction of unemployment but it fails to convey any message at all, not unlike Modern Simpsons. If there’s ONE thing I can give this credit for, it’s that the news blew the moral way out of proportion. The fact that SpongeBob does eventually realize the wrongs of unemployment and finds another job is at least competent. It wasn’t an intentional moral or a well-constructed one, it fails to show anything political or relevant in any way, and it feels manufactured as much as the rest of SpongeBob You’re Fired. But at least it saves this from being worse.

Lastly, let’s discuss the comedy. Wait I worded that poorly...

Let’s discuss how this episode only gets more broken in that it has no comedy at all. I forgot how this episode takes such a depressing and serious tone and subject matter. The few “jokes” there are are painfully long and arduous, from SpongeBob crying for four straight minutes, to SpongeBob getting kicked from a job four times in exactly the same way. The fun-employment scene is the worst example of this where SpongeBob is completely fed up with life and is miserable to look at. There did not need to be multiple close-ups of his face to drive home that point. His portrayal is on par with Squidward in “Are You Happy Now?” and that’s saying a lot. 

That one season 11 episode may have made me lost passion for the series for a long time. But it was a fluke. After watching the rest of Season 11especially Karen’s Virus, Plankton Paranoia, Squid Noir, and many others—I see that the post-sequel crew is really passionate about their work and are always bursting with new and creative ideas. SpongeBob You’re Fired is the last straw in a sea of a slow, dead, series that overstayed it’s welcome. It felt like a corporate product that Nickelodeon pitched. It was bad enough to get attacked on major news outlets and cemented the show as a zombie. Good riddance that Post-Sequel gave the series a much needed overhaul after this.

For that, I think I can safely call this the most fundamentally broken and poorly made episode of the series. Consider this my #1 once again.

WhoBob: SpongeBob You're Fired single handedly defeated every single episode for being the most uninspired and laziest episode ever existed. I can't even believe this was pitched in the first place. This episode has Marc Ceccarelli, Luke Brookshier and Mr. Lawrence as writers, all of them are incredibly talented writers, especially Luke Brookshier who is my favorite post-movie writer ever and yet none of them seemed like they wanted to make this episode at all. It all feels like a studio meddling by Nickeloden to force the crew to make a special about SpongeBob getting fired, which is why this episode feels so soulless that it's literally on par with season of Fairly OddParents, I'm not even joking. 

Lets start with the premise. SpongeBob gets fired from Krusty Krab, and from the start, this episode already shows us it rips off the premise of Squid on Strike, therefore the premise isn't anywhere close to being original to begin with. To makes things worse...the reason why Mr. Krabs fires SpongeBob is utterly nonsense. He fires SpongeBob OVER A DAMN NICKEL. Why is that? Because Mr. Krabs has to do budget cuts. That doesn't make sense, even as a damn joke. Time and time again, the show have told us without SpongeBob, Krusty Krab is NOTHING. He provides the most money and what's funny is that his paycheck is literally a nickel. Mr. Krabs is a businessman, he is not dumb to fire SpongeBob over a nickel. What's funny is that this kind of behavior reminds me of Mr. Krabs selling SpongeBob's soul over 62 cents in Born Again Krabs AND Mr. Krabs accusing of Squidward for stealing his 10 cents, which led Mr. Krabs fire him in Can You Spare a Time. Mr. Krabs' entire characterization is trash here and what's funny is that we're supposed to see how sad he has to make a decision but I don't feel anything because we all know he'll rehire SpongeBob at the end and because of his decision, I just facepalm over it. 

To make things even worse, SpongeBob cries like a baby and who doesn't fucking wanna hear SpongeBob crying? I get why he's sad but it's just so annoying than legit heartbreaking to me. It should have been a big deal because people losing their jobs is so common but I don't care for the conflict due to how it plays out. And of course SpongeBob being sad and obsessive over his job is tackled in Bummer Vacation, so there's another example of why I feel anything but interested in this episode. Then we get to have Patrick seeing a depressing SpongeBob and telling him that being unemployment is the best. Oh shit, this is the scene that caused FOX News to sperg over the episode promoting "unemployment", which caused an unnecessary controversy because this episode never promoted unemployment if they actually paid attention to the episode. That's one thing I'll disagree with the episode's criticism because this episodes doesn't even deserve controversy because it's so fucking boring. "Funemployment" as Patrick calls it isn't fun. It's a boring and forgettable sequence. After that shit is over, SpongeBob and Patrick heads to Sandy's treedome for free food for homeless... What does Sandy do? She warns SpongeBob to not eat the food because it's for experimental purposes. It gives Patrick a second head, which is so concerning. I'm usually a Sandy apologist but this right here is messed up and it's easily my least favorite version of Sandy ever. She would NEVER EVER do an illegal experiment on homeless and poor people. That's NOT who she is. She's not a criminal, yet this episode portrays Sandy as someone who can get away with this kind of shit. It's insulting to her character and it's very disturbing. To cut it shortly, Sandy convinces SpongeBob to get a new job and SpongeBob is headed to his way.

Welp, If you thought it couldn't have gotten more boring, wait and see. SpongeBob getting new jobs, I'm sure that premise hasn't been done before...oh wait. Model Sponge where SpongeBob thought Mr. Krabs fired him and he has to find himself a new job. Does this episode even try to do something different? Nope. SpongeBob tries out every single restaurant to be a chef there but every single time, he enters, he makes a Krabby Patty which leads to him getting kicked out. My god, I can maybe understand the episode doen't know it rips off other episodes but this is the most obvious one and the most inevitable one. Le Big Switch did this joke like come on. What makes it worse is that this episodes does it again and again with no real punchline to it, thus making the gag so stretched out that it becomes tedious. Of course the pointless scenes aren't over yet! 

After being fired last time, SpongeBob decides to make Gary a snail food, which kind of sounds like Patty Hype where SpongeBob tries out a different food to sell but it's funny that of all the rip offs, that premise could have been pulled off masterfully. Albeit, I doubt the episode tries to rip off that episode but I thought it's worth mentioning. You know, wouldn't it be amazing to see SpongeBob running a snail food company? Now that's an actual interesting premise that seems like it's derivated from Patty Hype but it could have been its own unique thing. But nope, this entire sequence is once again POINTLESS because we actually see that all the bosses SpongeBob got fired by, they all wanna rehire SpongeBob to make him do more Krabby Patty, so they kidnaps him and try to make him their slave. Yay, slavery in SpongeBob! And that premise is done done done done done in The Krusty Sponge. I'm just gonna go right into the whole fight sequence between Krabby Patty mascot and the bosses. Now that's an actual fun scene, too bad I still don't get emotionally invested in the story because this episode has all the chances to make me care for SpongeBob's journey but after many many many boring, annoying and disturbing scenes, the episode loses it.

Oh joy, the mascot brings SpongeBob to Krusty Krab which is in a really terrible state. Who would have thought! Oh wait, other episodes especially Whatever Happened to SpongeBob, where SpongeBob being away means Krusty Krab goes bankrupt. My god, it's so predictable that it's not even funny. How many times do I have to see SpongeBob's value over the restaurant to get it? The characters never ever appreciates SpongeBob's value and it makes me pissed off. The mascot turns out to be Squidward who saves SpongeBob only because burned patties are worse than being with him. Am I really supposed to feel something for this scene? It makes Squidward a complete heartless human being and I'm surprised many thought this was emotional, even when the episode's reputation was so low. And we get to see Mr. Krabs who regrets firing SpongeBob and he'll rehire him again. That's just no. Fuck you. You don't deserve SpongeBob, Mr. Krabs, it's that simple. If you never valued your best fry cook ever, your restaurant is worthy of being bankrupt. I can't even believe SpongeBob would accept the offer again. I would rather be jobless than working in that environment again. Yea, yea, SpongeBob loves working at Krusty Krabs and the show would lose its appeal If status quo was changed but SpongeBob doesn't even have dignity to move on from that toxic place the episode represented. Why should I care for this type of episode If SpongeBob will always work at Krusty Krab? I just don't because it's a waste of time. Oh joy, the episode ends on Mr. Krabs charging people to use the bathroom for a nickel, he just never learns and everyone's happy at the end.

This episode purposely or not, ripped off or took plot points from 8 EPISODES and I'm not even gonna enter the snail food scene reminding me of Patty Hype and the title being same as "Mrs. Puff, You're Fired". To forget all the rip offs, as a whole story, the episode has some of the worst characterizations from many characters, jokes are too long to make me laugh, story is poorly structured and pointless, animation is very lifeless and this is supposed to be A SPECIAL. For gods sake, I seriously wonder behind the scenes of this episode because it feels forced down our throats. This episode is on my #2 and If it weren't Gone's petty ending, this episode would have been my all-time least favorite episode. Fuck this episode hard and I hope it'll be on SBC's worst lists forever and especially on bottom 5!

[best blue's clues host]

Choose wisely.

 

Steve

 

Joe

 

Josh

 

Kevin (British host)

 

Duarte (Portuguese host)

 

HyunSup (Korean host)

 

Squidward (Squidward)

 

 

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

8. "Tonight's ruined. A complete disaster. And I didn't even meet Kelpy G."

Smoothe Jazz at Bikini Bottom, 416 points

29 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 2 #3's @dmandamanAndKnuckles @Matt0417) (0)

Melon: Well, this episode made my bottom 10. As I sorta mentioned in my Cephalopod Lodge commentary, to me, something bad happening to a character isn’t automatically a goodreason to hate an episode, and I think many episodes get too much hate for it. However, there IS a point where this can be a reason to hate an episode. There needs to be enough good to make an episode involving a lot of bad things happening to a character. Whether it be good humor or a great plot or so on, if there is good, then it doesn’t matter what bad things happen to a character. Squidward goes through a lot of bad things in Club Spongebob for example, but that episode is hilarious, so who cares? Another factor that can effect this is the amount it’s justified. If a character did something awful, like murder innocent people, then anything that happens to them would be justified. This episode, however, is not an episode about bad things happening to a character that works. It’s just a frustrating, annoying, and unfunny episode, and this makes everything Squidward goes through annoying or frustrating to watch. 

The reason why its so frustrating and annoying, is because this episode isn’t funny nor has a great plot or anything else to justify what is happening. This means theres nothing to make the bad things happening to Squidward entertaining, and so this episode gets annoying because its just bad things happening to Squidward when he didn’t deserve it. First, I’ll start with going through the beginning of the episode. The episode doesn’t start too terribly, but isn’t all that entertaining anyway. However, it’s still ok. Squidward loses his tickets to the concert, which sucks, but isn’t enough to make this episode bad. Squidward has to go to the concert with Spongebob since Spongebob wins the tickets for him, but again, its ok, that doesn’t make the episode bad or anything. Spongebob harms Squidward’s ability to talk to the other people at the concert because the other squids don’t like Spongebob, but again, not too bad. This isn’t a problem unless it gets REALLY bad for Squidward without enough entertainment. Once it gets to the concert, however, so many bad things happen to Squidward that was never deserved and goes too far for the low amount of actual entertainment.

Squidward is there listening to the music, and Patrick shows up literally out of nowhere to go eat Squidward’s backstage pass, ruining Squidward’s chance of getting to meet a clarinet player he really likes. It’s ok though, Spongebob is willing to give Squidward his backstage pass...... and then Patrick eats that for no reason too. Just.... this appearance of Patrick is so awful. In this whole episode, Patrick just appears out of nowhere to go eat stuff for no reason. And then Patrick just goes up to the stadium and asks for some food with the microphone, interrupting the concert for something so stupid, which should annoy the crowd because they don’t seem like the kind of person who would be ok with the concert being interrupted for this stupidity, and also should result in the security kicking Patrick out for this, but instead the security and kelpy g don’t care and the crowd cheers Patrick for this for literally no reason and carry him to the end of the stadium....... what??? This doesn’t even make any sense why they would want to do this. There’s no reason why the crowd would like this and cheer this and why security would be ok with this, espicially when these squids in the crowd were shown earlier to be fairly similar to Squidward. And then of course Squidward and Spongebob can’t get back to Patrick because the secruity isn’t ok with them leaving even though Patrick just did just fine..... and then both of them go back to find out that their seats were taken by two random people and refuse to leave even though Spongebob and Squidward fairly got those seats. So, deservingly, Squidward gets mad at this person, and suddenly THIS bothers the crowd and stops the show. No, not Patrick stupidily ordering food on the stage, that’s great and deserves to be cheered, but Squidward getting mad at someone for justified reasons unacceptable and gets him kicked out instead of the people who stole their seats. All of this is just so annoying and not enjoyable to me at all.

After this, Squidward then breaks into the backstage without the passes because the door is opened by Patrick who was allowed to go backstage for whatever reason. Squidward is of course caught by someone, and to get the guy to not kick him out, Squidward plays his clarinet to show how “good” he is, and Spongebob plays his ukulele. Kelpy G shows up and ignores Squidward’s awful clarinet performance but likes Spongebob’s ukulele and allows Spongebob to play with him in the concert, whereas Squidward goes up to the stage only to have be kicked out and have his clarinet taken away. While this stuff is justified since Squidward snuck in without permission and was playing awfully, him being ignored while Spongebob gets to play with Kelpy G feels so frustrating after all the other stuff Squidward goes through. It just makes the episode have an annoying ending on top of being annoying throughout the rest of the episode. In conclusion, the episode is very annoying and frustrating with awful Patrick, is nonsensical and stupid, and has Squidward go through so many bad things for wanting to enjoy a concert without making the episode actually funny or entertaining otherwise to make it ok.

7. "Gary! Shame on you! Puffy Fluffy is perfectly harmless."

A Pal for Gary, 428 points

24 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 3 #1's @Patty Rose @EmployeeAMillion @kev) (-5)

OWM: As you can see, this episode took a hell of a fall this year. I guess that's sort of good, because I don't really hate this episode. Hell, there are even some funny parts. I like the way Gary uses his leash as a lasso when he’s inspired by the Western movies, and him coming to the rescue at the end is genuinely awesome. SpongeBob also has a few stray funny lines about “enchiladas” and “You making meatballs Grandma? Time for dinner already.” However, I never said this was good, because it is not by all means. SpongeBob’s sassy, ignorant, bitchy self he transforms into in the second half of the episode is completely unjustified and infuriating. It makes no sense at all he would accuse Gary, his closest companion, of somehow sabotaging Puffy Fluffy at all. His conclusion that Gary “is just jealous” doesn’t make any sense at all, especially when viewing this obvious destruction a snail could not have caused. The chase scene is also really boring and weightless, by the way. Overall this episode excels better at being incredibly boring than doing anything offensive or mean-spirited. Does it belong in the top 10? Sure. But I would never put it anywhere near mine.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

let's go

10. "Neptune said this was all because of me!"

The Clash of Triton, 333 points

24 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 3 #3's @SICKO MORE @Loopers @AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH) (-3)

Klu: Clash of Triton is one little miserable special. Season 6 in general has not the best track-record in terms of specials and this episode, unfortunately, is no exception. Dull comedy, awful visuals, terrible plot, this is the recipe for disaster.

Probably the biggest problem of this episode that it’s too ambitious for it’s own good. It’s not even season 5 anymore, it’s season 6, where all good ideas and potential come to die. This episode tries to expand on show’s lore and tackle more serious issues like generational problems of father and son, but since this is:

a)      SpongeBob

b)      Season 6

c)       Special in season 6

This idea flopped. I remember reading interview where writers were saying that they were inspired by Greek tragedies. Only tragedy here is this episode’s existence.

I don’t mind when show tries out new things or when it’s ambitious (hell, I love post-sequel for that), but this episode forgot that SpongeBob just isn’t the right show to tackle such issues. But even if we give this idea a fair shot, because what the heck, it has other problems like characterization of Neptune. He is really unlikable and hypocritical, you can’t connect to him or root for him. You are more sympathetic towards Triton, who is MAIN ANTAGONIST of the episode. And even if this sounds like “grey”, more nuanced conflict, resolution of the conflict between Neptune and Triton is just laughable.  Instead of Neptune realizing his mistake, he congratulates his son for his evil deeds and destruction. I know that this is supposed to be a joke, but episode tries to take itself more or less seriously before, so why all of the sudden it doesn’t take itself seriously NOW? It’s like if “Have you seen this snail” was all normal until the very ending where SpongeBob neglected Gary again, rendering entire episode pointless with no character progression, just for the sake of dumb joke. The scariest thing that I imagine that if “Have you seen this snail” came out in season 6 it would’ve ended just like I described.

And of course SpongeBob and Patrick are chased by Bikini-bottomites because of course we also need badly written townspeople in the episode as cherry on the top.

 I can’t blame Nickelodeon for advertising this episode as an epic adventure, because in retrospect, that’s what this episode SHOULD’VE BEEN IN THE FIRST PLACE.  Epic adventure in style of “Dunces and Dragons”.  Instead it tries to be “Greek tragedy” resulting in badly written slog that is hard to get through. This episode has few decent jokes, like this puzzle opening the cage and Patrick being only one able to solve it, but this isn’t enough to save this trainwreck.

G4ry: If I’m going to be honest, my distaste of this episode largely stems from my expectations as a child. It may be me misremembering, but I remember this episode getting lots of promotion on Nickelodeon, moreso than any other special I remember. It was lauded as this fantastic battle in all the promos, but jack shit happened in the actual episode. My friends and I were hyped for what felt like weeks leading up to the episode. And it just fell flat. The worst part of the episode in my eyes is Triton himself. He’s just a grade A douche. He’s not compelling enough or relatable enough to be a good villain. In my eyes, he’s the worst one-off character in the show’s history. Worse than Big Sister Sam, Puffy Fluffy, Stanley, etc. Seeing him destroy Bikini Bottom with no repercussions annoys me to no end. And I know its not really a fault of the episode, but Triton’s voice annoys me. I truly do believe had the episode been less hyped up, I wouldn’t hate it this much. But it was; And I do.

9. "We'll find a way out and then we'll have the best eleventy-seventh anniversary ever. All we have to do is stick together."

Truth or Square, 401 points

20 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 4 #1's @RDSP @Captain TJ @The Helpful Mexican @hippythehippo) (+8)

Slug: Truth or Square, where to begin? For most of the infamous episodes, there is one thing that defines them. In A Pal for Gary it was Gary’s treatment by SpongeBob, in One Coarse Meal it was Plankton’s suicide attempt, in Squid Baby it’s basically the premise, but with Truth or Square, the episode is so full of badness from so many angles that it’s difficult to decipher. The episode just keeps throwing terrible moment after terrible moment at you at such a rapid pace that it’s difficult to keep up with it. However I will try my best to thoroughly tackle every single failure in this absolutely pathetic excuse of an anniversary special.

So the episode begins with a Patchy sequence. I like Patchy, well I sometimes like Patchy. In a lot of episodes where the story needs more than 11 minutes but might not be able to fill 22, Patchy could help add something to the episode. The writers seemed to realize this and decided instead of making an actually interesting storyline that would warrant being labeled a TV movie, they could just fill it up with as much Patchy as possible to stretch out the episode to grueling lengths. Even in episodes where Patchy is fun, it’s always very short, and that’s how it should be. Patchy segments were always meant to be small extras on top of an episode, but when you make them an actual substantial part of an episode, that charm goes away. It just reeks of cheapness since they take up a substantial part of the episode. With so much Patchy it feels less like a fun extra and more like I’m watching a lazy kids sitcom tacked onto a SpongeBob episode. I’ve actually seen people who don’t hate Truth or Square entirely, but hate the Patchy segments, and some people say they prefer to judge the SpongeBob parts separately. Even without Patchy, the SpongeBob segments are still extremely flawed, but even if you think the SpongeBob portions are fine, the simple fact of the matter is that without Patchy, this isn’t a TV movie. If your supposed TV movie needs Patchy in order to be a TV movie, I’m going to judge Patchy along with the rest of the episode. To say that you just need to ignore Patchy to like Truth or Square is the equivalent of saying you need to skip all of The Phantom Menace except the Darth Maul lightsaber fight to enjoy it. If an episode is going to waste so much of my time with extraneous Patchy scenes, I’m going to critique them as if they are a part of the episode, because, you know, they are a part of the episode.

Anyways, within the very first scene we can see just how awful these Patchy scenes are going to be firsthand. Most notably, we can see just how lazy they are. Now I know exactly how some of you are going to respond. Some will say that the entire point of Patchy was to resemble a cheap kids’ show. But here’s the thing, they were intentionally lazy, and actually crafted jokes around their laziness. Take for example how in Christmas Who, Patchy just cuts off Potty’s strings, and in Ugh when he’s riding a dinosaur, he just falls over and needs a crew to help pick him back up, with an intermission that follows. They knew that they were making a parody of cheap kids’ shows, and that’s the key word here, parody. They actually made jokes out of this, there’s a difference between making fun of how cheap something is, and just being cheap, which is clearly the case with Truth or Square. Bad camerawork is not a joke, and when you have to watch so much of this, it becomes extremely grating and impossible to enjoy in any capacity.

Now Patchy segments tend to have very little of a story, often just revolving around a silly argument between Patchy and Potty, since Truth or Square’s segments are longer, they had to mix It up, which they did… in the worst possible way imaginable. The way they tried to tie this into the SpongeBob segments was to have Patchy trying to create an anniversary special for SpongeBob. Not exactly a bad synopsis, fits in pretty well with what they were going for in the SpongeBob portions of the episode. However, after having some really unfunny banter with some person at Nick, which feels like unscripted small talk, pretty much half of these segments is just celebrity cameos. What point do these cameos have? Nothing. Are there any jokes in them? Not really, the very few they do try are horrendously executed. Hey, Patchy’s breath smells, hilarious! So we’re left with a significant portion of this episode just having Patchy interact with celebrities, no jokes and no reason to be there. Nickelodeon or someone in the creative staff decided that in order to really qualify as a celebration they needed to shoehorn in as many famous people as possible to get some kid to say “Hey, I recognize LeBron James!” and hope that somehow makes up for the lack of any comedy. That is if you can recognize such iconic beacons of entertainment such as the Triumph Insult Dog, if you can’t, you really are the fool here. They truly waste so much time on this only for Patchy to give up on his special. They could’ve had Patchy come to this realization in different ways. Maybe lower it to like 3 recognizable celebrities or have them appear in a terrible anniversary special so that way the interviews actually mattered in the end and it didn’t feel like a complete waste of time.

After these interviews the episode takes an odd direction. We get a music number by Pink, and it’s quite bad. Like a lot of the songs around this period of the show, it doesn’t stick out at all and is full of generic and repetitive lyrics, it also doesn’t need to be here and isn’t important to the story at all, they’re even self-aware of it in the episode. They’re just like screw it, if Patchy isn’t doing this special, then we’re going to do something! Where is Patchy at? Well he’s taken a grand journey to meet SpongeBob, only to get eaten by a whale. I really hate this whale section. It might seem odd because the material here isn’t that bad in a vacuum. If you just saw they old-styled cartoon with SpongeBob on YouTube, you’d probably enjoy it. However, why is it here? It just feels so shoe-horned in. It’s as if you’re watching Dunces and Dragons, and then there’s this random intermission where Patchy shows up and says “Hey kids, what if SpongeBob was an anime?” and they showed a random scene of SpongeBob in anime style that has no impact on anything. Like ok, great, you’re able to draw SpongeBob as an old-style cartoon, but why? It really shows this episode has so little substance they had to stuff in what amounts to DVD extras to pad its length. There is also this alternate intros portion which is an interesting idea but isn’t actually that funny, it’s done better in Unreal Estate where the intros actually have a joke with a punchline and tie into the story. Hey look, it’s the SpongeBob intro, except it’s Patrick! I did like the part where Squid’s pants get removed, but that’s the one clever subversion here, they rest is just watching the SpongeBob intro with different characters. Not enough to make up for the lack of meaning.

When Patchy nears his end, the only thing that I can appreciate at all is “Hallucination SpongeBob” having his own wiki page, this whole thing just completely worthless dreck made so that the episode could be as long as possible to rack up more ad-space and make people think they’re going to be watching a TV movie. Sorry but I can never accept anyone thinking these aren’t the worst Patchy segments, what is there to defend here? How can anyone actually tell me Friend or Foe, Atlantis or Feral Friends are worse than this? By comparison, Truth or Square’s segments are far longer, much more poorly made, and don’t even attempt any funny antics. At least Atlantis had the Encino bit, at least Friend or Foe’s segments were short and actually had banter between Patchy and Potty rather than celebrities and random people who bounce off him terribly, and at least Feral Patchy is barely in the episode at all. For me Truth or Square’s Patchy segments are downright insulting. They don’t need to exist at all, it’s completely jumbled, and when it isn’t jumbled it’s boring with countless scenes of Patchy just… talking to celebrities, with next to no actual humor at all. They really could’ve just had focused on Patchy crafting his anniversary special, having Patchy search for SpongeBob or Patchy showing random things like the alternate intros. For the anniversary special, they really just slapped together the cheapest and half-assed script, if they had one at all, and hoped people would still accept it. For a show as treasured as SpongeBob, I find this downright disgraceful. This is hands down the worst thing the show has ever done, no contest. Nothing has had as little thought or effort as much as this. Even in episodes like Choir Boys, I’m sure there was still some sort of creative process, even if it was poorly done, but this feels cynical to the core with no heart or soul to be seen.

Things don’t get much better when we get to the meat of the special. Despite being in HD, the episode still feels remarkably bland. It’s probably the best animated season 6 episode, but season 6 was hideous as sin, and considering this was their first foray into HD for the show, I’d say it’s quite the spectacular failure. They really do nothing to take advantage of the widescreen. It’s like any other season 6 episode if you gave it a new code of paint. The animation is still stiff, the character designs are often ugly and really they do nothing impressive for the entire runtime. It all takes place in the Krusty Krab and occasionally some other often seen Bikini Bottom setpiece in flashbacks. Season 6 animation doesn’t suddenly become appealing when you up the number of pixels. I didn’t know this episode was HD when I first saw it, I had to look it up myself, and when reviewing this again I can see why.

The actual story though? It’s, of course, horrible, and very scarce in actual substance. It makes SpongeBob, You’re Fired look like an endearing adventure. It should go without saying that there’s no good jokes to make up for that. I have to admit I don’t despise “A Day like This” but it’s about the only thing I can get a modicum of enjoyment out of. We now have to admire the comedic genius this episode has to offer. SpongeBob jumping on people’s heads to get to work. Complete comedy gold. There’s so many scenes in this episode where I’m just confused on how I’m supposed to find them funny. Is SpongeBob jumping on people’s heads supposed to be the laugh riot they cooked up for a 10 year anniversary special? Speaking of bad jokes there is this odd scene in the beginning where SpongeBob gets his first Krabby Patty as a baby. It’s just this awkward scene that is weird and unfunny. If you wanted to see baby SpongeBob eat Krabby Patties in the womb then I guess Truth or Square has you covered?

The episode doesn’t get much better once the Krusty crew assembles, and the very beginning of when they enter the Krusty Krab has such a confusing moment, pardon me but I really need to dissect this. Mr. Krabs suspects that given the special day, Plankton must be cooking up a special plan, and shows via hologram a secret network of tunnels. Now, as will be discussed later, the majority of this episode is made up of characters crawling through vents. So why does this scene exist at all? These tunnels never amount to anything in the episode. I genuinely think they might’ve made some kind of error here and got vents confused with tunnels. This scene would work as foreshadowing for when they get stuck in the vents later on, but as is we never see these tunnels, and the tunnels are never brought up again in the story. Considering how this scene has nothing to do with anything else in the episode, I think they made a mistake in the writing process and forgot where the characters actually end up later on.

Moving on from that, more about the humor in this episode. They’ve really got two forms of jokes in this episode, flashbacks and montages, those are what make up the bulk of what I suppose are supposed to be humorous in this episode. We see a montage of SpongeBob decorating the Krusty Krab and we’ve got a montage of Krabs owning Plankotn with facts and logic sporting equipment. These montages I think are supposed to be humorous but they aren’t funny. All the changes SpongeBob makes to the Krusty Krab are pretty typical and have been made before. Compare that to a joke in Krusty Towers where the ways Squidward paints Patrick’s room get really silly, but here there’s barely a punchline at all, SpongeBob is just decorating the Krusty Krab and some of the designs are just different locations. There is really zero punchline here. The montage with Krabs is even worse. It’s the same joke repeated over and over again. It isn’t mixed up at all, showing the same gag over and over again isn’t what I’d call a great use of time. What makes it worse is that it’s the same awful slapstick as the rest of the episode. SpongeBob can do some great slapstick, look at seasons 1-4 and post-sequel, but it only works there because the animation has energy, without it. There is zero punch to these scenes, it’s all extremely stiff, what this means is that you’ve got very poorly done visual humor that fails to inspire a single laugh. This is the same for the rest of the visual humor seen in the episode. Patrick becomes the Krusty Krab guard beats up Squidward, yet instead of having stretchy animation it’s just the typical awful season 6 animation we’re all used to (And you bet there’s more dumb Patrick humor, lol Patrick breaks the walkie talkies cuz he’s dumb XD).

This episode also has a lot of flashbacks, there’s a lot more of them in the vents but I want to talk about the flashback where Squidward sleeps. Now this episode is supposed to be a parody of clipshows, but how do they parody it at all? What we have here is material that’s just as boring as what we’d get in a clipshow, and it isn’t even clips from previous episodes. The joke here is supposed to be that Squidward has consistently slept on the job, but it’s so poorly delivered in a clipshow format like this. It’s a long, drawn-out punchline that would be much better off with a snappy execution. Now maybe it’d be funnier if Squidward was sleeping in odd places, like what if Squidward was sleeping when the Krusty Krab was on fire? However as is, it’s just scenes of Squidward sleeping like all the other scenes of the show we’ve seen were Squidward sleeps at work, no humor at all.

Believe it or not, Plankton is also in this episode. You would be forgiven for not knowing that, because I think even the writers forgot halfway through. Plankton has zero purpose in this episode. It’s almost a parody of how these post-movie seasons kept shoe-horning Plankton in. For his grand plan on the anniversary, Plankton just walks in. He does absolutely nothing the entire episode otherwise, he makes a cameo in the vents for an unfunny joke revolving around the secret formula, and then he fails to get the formula. There’s zero reason for him to be here. I understand they probably wanted Plankton in for this, but at least give him a role. Give him an actual plan and have him actually impact the story. This just feels super lame. This is the exact same problem that Atlantis had where Plankton was put in for no reason besides the fact that it’s a post-movie SpongeBob episode so it’s somehow got to be about Plankton trying to get that secret formula.

After a series of unfortunate events, the Krusty crew gets themselves stuck in the freezer, and have to roam through the vents figure out a way to get out. This is the bulk of the episode. That’s right, the best idea they had for the anniversary special was for characters to squabble around in vents. It’s like the writers saw into the future and witnessed The Main Drain, then figured that it was a model episode to be inspired by, and tried their best to replicate the dull boringness of that episode for Truth or Square. Now an episode doesn’t have to be a huge event, it’s SpongeBob after all, but if you’re going to use up so much of my time, then I expect something better than this! The characters just go around in vents, they do nothing, and they randomly solve the conflict when the plot demands the conflict needs to be solved. They just randomly bust out, it’s no realization they discovered, they didn’t have to learn anything, they just break out when they need to. I just cannot fathom how this was the idea that they thought warranted TV movie status. Big One wasn’t a good episode, but it could’ve really used an extra 20 minutes to feel more epic and fleshed out. Clash of Triton is a shitty ass episode but there’s the possibility that more time could’ve greatly improved it, but of all these specials Truth or Square was the one that warranted this? It’s easily the one least deserving of its runtime. Characters crawling through vents is the big celebration for SpongeBob being 10 years on the air we deserved? That’s just… lame.

The only thing that happens at all in these vents are flashbacks. These flashbacks provide us with much epic material. What if SpongeBob and Sandy had a fake wedding? Hey, did you know Squidward hates SpongeBob? Let’s look at how great his life was without SpongeBob! We get an epic MCU origin story for SpongeBob’s pineapple too! Want to see a commercial for the Krusty Krab styled in an old timey way? Do you know that Mr. Krabs is going full George W. Bush and spy on everyone in Bikini Bottom? All of this definitely makes up for there being nothing else to this episode, right? These flashbacks have the same problem as the whale scene, except worse. They are all just random scenes that aren’t funny and don’t actually relate to the plot. It’s just really apparent how messy this episode is. There is nothing here for me to enjoy at all. The laughs I can’t even say are bad, because I didn’t laugh at all, and there’s no good story to back it up. Just shoe-horning random crap in doesn’t make up for any of this. It’s not a revelation if it doesn’t reveal anything, and none of them are funny either. Not that I expected them to reveal anything, because of course they don’t.

If you are a fan of genius tunes such as “The Rodeo Song” and “The Road Song”. Oh Krusty Krab is another great addition. I mean it’s shorter than those and not as bad but it’s still another lame song. So what did Nickelodeon give us for sticking with the show for 10 years? A ton of horrible Patchy scenes, a long tedious sequence where characters talk in vents and flashbacks that don’t land at all. This is the worst episode of the series for the sheer volume of things wrong with it. No other episode insults me as much as this one, no other episode wastes this much of my time with complete boring and poorly made dreck. I can’t stand this episode, it has absolutely nothing to offer, there’s no laughs, no originality, and it’s not even an interesting kind of bad episode. There are some bad episodes where I can say, hey, they tried something. Sure it was awful, but they had an idea and committed to it. Truth or Square has no ideas. I don’t even know what they were attempting to do here. It’s a vapid, cheap and boring excuse for a TV movie that wastes as much time as possible without having any entertainment value.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

12. "Maybe this will teach you not to treat the world as your own personal trash can!"

Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful, 282 points

19 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #1 @MarcoGagFanatic) (+13)

Ben: I despise this episode. Everything about it. We’re gonna be doing a breakdown of this episode folks get ready and sit down. 

The premise of this episode is not that bad to be honest but I don’t like it. Squidward’s littering causing community service is not great. Then Squilliam comes. Easily the most pointless Squilliam use in the series. I feel like he’s there as a rival but it’s not a fun to watch rivalry like in other episodes like Band Geeks or Squilliam Returns, it’s a very bland appearance. You know what I’m just going to dive into the cop joke. 

10 tickets. 10 tickets (the last 2 are given at once so it’s more like nine times) are given in this episode. All of them slow down this episode for this very repetitive joke. A joke that wasn’t funny the first time let alone the 6th. The joke (after the first time) only seems to exist to make squidward a punching bag. Notable examples of the ticket joke include when the cop gives squidward a ticket then the ticket falls on the floor and the trash house ticket which I will get to later. The ticket on the floor joke really does feel like it’s there only to treat Squidward badly. The whole structure of the joke is tiring and I personally don’t see why it needed to be a decent chunk of the episode. 

The goddamn trash house. What an awful scene and it’s easily one of the worst of post movie era. An utter waste of one minute that shows everything wrong with Season 6-8. The first reason is how it is way too long. The thing with this joke is that it could have been executed in a matter that was way shorter than what we got. Instead of going through his shitty gross out humor where XD HE’S DRINKING FUCKING TRASH, they could have established that he saw the junk within the first like 10 seconds of the joke. Instead they drag it out. No plot changes happen if I were to just make him realize the house was trash immediately. The second reason is easily the gross out. You can do good gross out but this is really unfunny. I tie the unfunny-ness due to being how boring it is. Then of course Squidward gets a ticket for this. Tying right into last paragraph of how even though SpongeBob did this action, Squidward gets punished for no reason. 

Overall this is why to me Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful is the worst episode of the entire series. It’s unfunny-ness combined with the worst elements of post movie make me feel like this was awful. In conclusion the cop theme is iconic and now it’s over. I’m proud this episode made it higher than its previous spot. While it might not be in the top 10 it’s really close.

11. "Public nudity is against the law in this county. But don't fret. You'll look just fine in prison orange."

Someone's in the Kitchen with Sandy, 310 points

23 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #1 @SRRS) (+3)

Coffee: Over the long years,I still can’t stop to be impressed at how this episode doesn’t give a shit this badly.As much as I dislike Season 7,I’m gonna be honest,most of the famous episodes of the season that despised by millions of fans doesn’t affect me at all.One Coarse Meal,A Pal for Gary,The Cent of Money,Yours Mine and Mine...and so on.They aren’t good by any means,but I feel like they far from begin a Bottom-tier even for this season alone,but today’s peak easily not one of them.A lot of people consider it to felt like a DeviantArt fanfiction,and that’s really insulting...for DeviantArt,because even a Spongebob Wiki’s user would’ve made a less confusing and pathetic plot than this atrocious is.On the one side of the coin this is Imitation Krabs’ knock off number 8385105,where instead any clever and humorous jokes we have one of the lamest attempt at gags of all time,and as a result non a single one worked even for a halfway,besides TRY AGAINNNNNNNNNN might be ironically funny for someone(even then recent Surf N’ Turf made the same joke funny neutrally so eh).Planktons’ plan for stealing the formula has no logical sense or reasoning as well.But what especially making episode so horrendous is a Sandy’s plot.Usually,I don’t consider "mean-spirited" as a reason to dislike episodes no matter what,but episode legit doesn’t have a single reason to treat Sandy as cruel and lame as it did,even at the end she get arrested for the stupidest reason that you can ever imagined,and I would’ve even merely buy that if townspeople were the only dumb/ignorant characters in episode,even if it’s still a lame excuse and a bad joke,the problem is that every single character here is incredibly dumb,even Sandy herself had no reason to not wearing her Space-suit when there’s was no complications,this standard plot point alone making all of sub-plot completely avoidable and pointless.

On one side,it’s jarringly boring and useless,on other,it’s painful to sit though for the fact that character was blamed by wearing bikini only,when even the damn name of the town is a B I K I N I bottom.Everything that happened in this episode fells like the first draft of the script without any rechecking.Is it as lazy as The Main Drain?You may ask me.While I think Kitchen has bigger amount of lazy plot-holes in total,what did Drain is still worse and lazier.Unfortunately it’s not making Kitchen less irredeemable and despicable as it was and definitely not saving from begin in my Bottom 10 of the series.But I can give one minor credit to episode,at least it’s an Imitation Krabs clone where I still remembered what happened in it,unlike Gramma’s Secret Recipe,Shellback Shenanigans and Evil Spatula,but that’s another story...

 

Well that concludes the first 40 episodes of this list. Just to recap:

Spoiler

50. The Fish Bowl

49. Pineapple Fever

48. Gone

47. Squidward's School for Grown-Ups

46. The Googly Artiste

45. You Don't Know Sponge

44. The Play's the Thing

43. Pet Sitter Pat

42. A Day Without Tears.

41. The Card

40. Face Freeze!

39. Cephalopod Lodge

38. All That Glitters

37. Shuffleboarding

36. Waiting

35. House Sittin' for Sandy

34. Atlantis SquarePantis

33. Sportz?

32. To Love a Patty

31. Demolition Doofus

30. The Nitwitting

29. Summer Job

28. Sponge-Cano!

27. What Ever Happened to SpongeBob?

26. The Cent of Money

25. Squid's Visit

24. Fungus Among Us

23. Rodeo Daze

22. Yours, Mine and Mine

21. The Main Drain

20. Little Yellow Book

19. Are You Happy Now?

18. The Splinter

17. Boating Buddies

16. Slide Whistle Stooges

15. One Coarse Meal

14. Trenchbillies

13. Big Sister Sam

12. Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful

11. Someone's in the Kitchen with Sandy

10. ???

9. ???

8. ???

7. ???

6. ???

5. ???

4. ???

3. ???

2. ???

1. ???

Through process of elimination by now you probably already have an idea of what our top 10 will look like. Instead of asking everyone directly, I invite anybody looking to talk about these episodes to send me their commentary as soon as you can. Stay tuned for tomorrow, folks.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

14. "Well, it's now or never."

Trenchbillies, 251 points

18 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 2 #3's @Cha @Wumbo) (-5)

Ben: This episode is fucking legend. It’s provided so many ironic injokes with shit like GAY BROTHERS and the iconic scene where SPONGEBOB AND PATRICK CRASH INTO EACH OTHER AND ARE GAY and WELL ITS NOW OR NEVER, that if you want my true opinions on the episode I have to set those injokes aside. The episode’s actual jokes are awful and cliche, bringing I feel nothing new to the table in terms of comedy, rather it’s just tired tropes. I have it right at number 8 which seems about right.

Kaiju: Trenchbillies is one of those episodes I can both hate and find a weird sense of enjoyment in. For one, the episode is incredibly boring and does next to nothing with the premises of “lol hillbilly anglerfish”, like the entire competition scene isn’t funny at all and feels like pure padding. The incredibly forced inclusion of the Krusty Krab doesn’t help this episode’s case. Yet at the same time it provides ironic enjoyment with such wonderful scenes like the now infamous GAY BROTHERS scene (the part where SpongeBob and Patrick smash into each other) or WELL ITS NOW OR NEVER. This is exactly why I can’t get myself to hate this, unlike certain episodes that made it to the list, purely because of how godly it is.

13. "She's a big buffoon, just like Patrick. Except bigger, and dumber, and buffoonier."

Big Sister Sam, 262 points

21 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 2 #3's @BeachBob95 @CakeCup) (-3)

OWM: Sam is definitely one of the worst one-timers in series history. Literally all this character does is just scream and destroy stuff while shouting random things about being mad and smashing stuff. She’s completely uninteresting and has no personality beyond...just destroying stuff! And I guess being hypersensitive? Her remorse at the end also means absolutely nothing since the episode ends anyway. Patrick is debatably even worse here too. He completely condones and defends Sam all throughout this ordeal and for some reason equates SpongeBob and Squidward being against their houses being destroyed as being against him. This plot offers nothing at all to anyone too. It’s so barebones and so devoid of working at all that the episode repeats itself constantly. Squidward attempts to destroy the rock twice in a row. Sam destroys and maims SpongeBob and/or Squidward and their houses. SpongeBob tells Patrick Sam is crazy and Patrick takes it personally and refuses to listen. Sam says the same few phrases over and over again. This is the most repetitive episode I have ever seen. This was toward the bottom at my list but I'll never hesitate to not put it on next time.

Hippy: Big Sister Sam got way worse on rewatch. This is my worst season 7 episode because of how annoying Sam and Patrick are, and facing no punishment at the end. The episode turns on Spongebob for some reason, but he and Squidward are the only good characters in the episode. The episode is either tedious or boring, even both sometimes. Sam has no good qualities, cracks no good jokes, and is one of the worst one offs this series has put out. No jokes are funny, there isn't anything to redeem it. A lot of season 7 isnt that annoying, but this episode is. Really ass episode.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

sorry no commentary today nobody submitted anything and im too tired Enjoy!

16. "Someone help! Baby assaulter!"

Slide Whistle Stooges, 238 points

16 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 2 #1's @President Squidward @Wumbo) (-3)

OWM: You know, when you add no sense of emotion or depth to SpongeBob or Patrick they blend together into one character and become boring, lifeless husks. They’re not distinct from each other at all, and become the same person through the use of these dumb ass slide whistles. Them being annoying is the only semblance of a plot this episode has, and it’s not interesting or creative or hilarious at all. When Squidward joins in on their antics, you think they’d have some sort of improved or changed dynamic, huh? But no, it’s just the exact same harassment except with three people instead of two. Speaking of harassment, it’s another low point of this episode. Squidward or the Bottomites can yell and scream all they want, but it still won’t add anything at all to the humor or the episode overall. Squidward becoming an asshole comes out of nowhere and isn’t enjoyable in the slightest. Something about him causing a retiring police officer to get mutilated strikes me as being seriously wrong and OOC. The ending at the hospital is also a whole bunch of nothing. It’s not offensive or anything since the patients are clearly laughing, but it’s not related to the rest of the episode and overall feels confusing and inconclusive.

15. "Mr. Krabs, I know you and Plankton are both sworn enemies and all, but putting on a dress to frighten him? Isn't that taking it a little too far?"

One Coarse Meal, 249 points

15 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 2 #1's @JCM @Night-Waker) (-12)

WhoBob: Sorry for late commentary folks. One Coarse Meal is such a shitty af episode with having no idea what to do with its story and it's edgy for sake of being edgy. I honestly never thought of rooting for Plankton to have a revenge against Mr. Krabs but here we are. This episode is a complete character assassination of Mr. Krabs. I get he hates Plankton so much, he is his arch enemy after all and I couldn't care less if he always throws Plannton to the Chum Bucket or flushed the toilet with him. But literally using his own fears against him just for amusement is wrong and he should know better. I feel like this episode desperately tried to make the conflict not so black and white but it failed miserably by painting Mr. Krabs as a sadistic person and Plankton is rather a petty criminal that didn't deserve to be driven to insanity. The whole dream sequence is very unfunny and edgy that I have no idea what the episode was thinking. To make things worse Karen, Plankton's wife, doesn't give a shit about his condition and I feel like that aspect is always overlooked in the movie. To make things worse Plankton wants to be run over by a bus. Idc if it was supposed to be a suicide joke or just Plankton wanting to hurt himself. It's just so uncomfortable. And when SpongeBob finds Plankton at his lowest, he wants to help Plankton and hell even before SpongeBob has a talk with Mr. Krabs about him going too far but in the end, SpongeBob backstabs Plankton by scaring him away. What kind of resolution is that? Am I supposed to believe that SpongeBob would be loyal to Mr. Krabs after what he has done? He always have a need to call out Mr. Krabs and give him a piece of his mind when he needs to be (Arrgh!, Can You Spare a Dime, Jellyfish Hunter), so his decision here feels so double cross and I hated that. And the episode ends on a note that doesn't feel like an ending at all. It's just so bizarrely finished story. To sum it up shortly, One Coarse Meal is a big ass mess that tries to be dark for no reason and when it comes to justifying character decisions, it does a hamfisted job with it. The episode has a good start, I'm not gonna lie. I liked the action sequence and "wacky bucks" is a good joke but rest of the episode is so horrendously written that I'm glad it's still appearing on the list, even if it keeps getting at lower spots in each list.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

18. "This garbage compress should help that go down."

The Splinter, 209 points

19 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #5 @Trainman2002) (-3)

Carotte: The Splinter is an episode that is honestly hard to watch. It's not just about gross-out, but there are other flaws that really ruin the episode for me. But first, I want to admit that the beginning was decent (before SpongeBob got the splinter), but after that...nope, nothing good. To be honest, I don't think the plot itself is good. SpongeBob got the splinter in a dumb way (lol throwing his spatula to the ceiling, nice plot device) and that close up when he falls already is ew. Besides the gross-out scenes, there is that Patrick scene I hate so much. He doesn't even help SpongeBob, like he doesn't even try! The ending is one of the worst in the show, Squidward becomes a Patrick (in terms of stupidity) who takes the work compersation so seriously that he smashes his head so that he leaves work. I feel like I've said enough. Awful episode.

17. "SpongeBob and Squidward, best boating buddies, forever."

Boating Buddies, 220 points

15 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 2 #2's @EmployeeAMillion @hippythehippo) (+4)

4EverGreen: Well, I knew we were probably going to get to this train-wreck of an episode sooner or later. For me, this represents the WORST aspects of "Squidward Abuse", and "Boating Episodes", rolled into one messed-up package! Now, the concept of Squidward going to Boating School with Spongebob, DID have the potential to be something unique and cool, but what the writers did instead, was turn up Spongebob's stalking tendencies ALL the way up to eleven, have Squidward get hit and abused ALL through the episode for no reason, have Squidward FINALLY tell Spongebob off, and seconds later, have to have him take it all BACK, because Squidward dropped his pencil, and can't pick it up because of his injuries, so he needs Spongebob's advice, only for Spongebob to reveal that he doesn't KNOW the answers anyway, even though PAST episodes have shown him to be SMART, meaning Squidward gets to go through all this torture/abuse AGAIN!

There are so many things this episode could've done better, it's really NOT even funny! The only saving grace this episode has, is that it's no longer the WORST example of "Squidward Abuse" episodes out there, unfortunately. That dishonor falls to my personal #1 pick for the worst episode, which is bound to show up on this list sooner or later. Enough said, true believers!

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

20. "Reading somebody else's diary—that's terrible! Tell me more!"

Little Yellow Book, 194 points

13 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #2 @Charles Manson) (+8)

OWM: This is definitely one of the "big 3" of almost universally-hated episodes from this season, along with two other episodes that shall be unnamed for now. I actually found this one to have some pretty funny moments smattered throughout.The first scene where Squidward reads SpongeBob’s diary is great. SpongeBob narrating over a series of legitimately funny scenes of Squidward yelling at him and working at the Krusty Krab are really great. The “bubble break” is also a pretty lame but funny joke. But unfortunately this isn't enough to offset how bad this episode really is. After the long cooking scene and overall boring first third, the second third is basically entirely devoted to making SpongeBob do random things for comedy’s sake. Him doing things like clucking like a chicken and dancing naked are not exactly something you’d write in your diary to begin with which makes these scenes all the more ham-fisted. Eventually SpongeBob runs away crying and now all of a sudden Squidward is the bad guy. After laughing and cheering him on and acknowledging that he was indeed reading a diary for several minutes, the Bottomites are now suddenly on the moral high ground and abandon him. The last third of the episode is Squidward’s life becoming miserable as the entire town shits on him back-to-back, and later he finds SpongeBob and pretends to apologize only to backstab him again as the entire town goes back to shitting on him. Although he deserves some comeuppance for this I can’t help but find this incredibly hollow. Squidward learns nothing from his actions and continues to be really flat, which isn’t at all satisfying or really even worth watching. So yeah, although this just missed my list I can perfectly understand the hate for this episode. Nothing here makes any sense and it's all strung together by a pretty dumb plot.

19. "I might as well go to bed for a hundred years or so. Wake me when I'm dead..."

Are You Happy Now?, 200 points

14 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #1 @jjsthekid) (+13)

jjs: Yes, after much deliberation the past year, this is my new number one. I'm surprised too after my many constant changing number ones. I'll break this one down simply: SpongeBob should have never done commentary on something such as depression. This is SpongeBob, this show at this point does not have the brains nor wit to tackle something like this in a heartfelt manner. I wouldn't say it's offensive, but it's tasteless, unfunny, horrifically broken on every layer, meandering pacing, a dull slog, and a downright obnoxious episode at points with zero redeeming qualities for me. What an awful idea for an episode. Squidward not having a happiest memory should have never been a premise for an episode, because it's evident it was only going to be used to shit on Squidward for 11 minutes. The show has managed to break continuity and still make a good premise out of it before, but this did not. Every "joke" (and that's being generous) in this episode completely fell flat on its face, like, this is one of the few S8 episodes where it tried to have jokes be a crux, and I hated every single one of them. Okay, I'll say it: The suicide jokes....don't annoy me that much surprisingly. I think they are incredibly stupid, pointless, and unfunny (and possibly a reference to Squidward's Suicide???), but they are actually the least of my problems with this episode. No, my biggest problems with this episode are: the "humor", tone, and SPONGEBOB. The tone in this episode is so confused...are we supposed to feel bad for Squidward? Are we supposed to laugh at him? SpongeBob's whacky antics do not bounce off of Squidward's depression in any clever way for us to gauge a clear tone in this episode. An episode that is tonally confused like this is an awful one in my book. On that note, I cannot STAND SpongeBob himself in this episode. This might not be his worst appearance character wise, but every single thing he does to "help" Squidward is irritating, brings the episode's pacing to a grinding halt, and is shocker, not funny. It drives me nuts, especially as it culminates into that weird as hell ending...what even was that? I'm glad we solved Squidward's depression by having him pretend he's killing a bunch of fake SpongeBobs...yay??? Unfortunately, I don't have the energy or time to write a massive, long rant like others by this point, but yes, I truly despise this episode. It's clunky, badly written, frustrating, and fundamentally broken on every single level. I can get why people don't hate this one as much, because I admit my strong dislike for it mostly from personal reasons. But even when putting those aside, every other issue is prevalent and glaring enough that this one was just going to keep climbing up my list. It may not be as objectively bad as other things coming up soon, but on a personal level I despise this one. This episode may be 7 years old now (!), but I'm fascinated that this somehow was given a thumbs up to go in production. I don't think this one is being dethroned from this spot on my list anytime soon honestly, unless the show tries to tackle another serious subject matter like this in the future, which I'd hope not. To once again answer the question the title poses: No, I really am not.

Slug: I really don't know why this one is made. There are some episodes that feel like in an alternate dimension they could've been well done, and there's episodes where I wonder why they bothered with the idea at all. Along with Squid Baby Are You Happy Now definitely fits in with the later category. Half of this episode is about as removed from anything resembling SpongeBob as possible. Watching Squidward acting depressed for a really long period of time is not something I'd classify as entertainment, which makes it even more insufferable when the other half of the episode is SpongeBob doing wacky schemes to make Squdward happy. It'd be one thing if the episode was just light-hearted attempts to cheer Squidward up, but having Squidward actually get depressed makes this feel a whole lot worse. In other episodes that have Squidward getting the short end of the stick, there's still that feeling that it's a cartoon made for laughs, but in this episode the serious tone actually makes it a whole lot more uncomfortable when Squidward actually goes through hard times. Of course any review of Are You Happy now wouldn't be complete without mentioning the ending, and it really does end the episode on a memorably horrible note. SpongeBob gives Squidward a bunch of replicas of himself, and Squidward destroys them all saying that he has a happy memory. Now in a regular episode this ending could probably just be seen as a funny, comedy ending, but with how seriously Squidward's depression is portrayed in this episode, it actually feels like Squidward's mental health has snapped, and he's gone insane. Leaving the episode off on a rather uncomfortable note. That's the best way to describe this episode, uncomfortable. It isn't funny at all, and seeing Squidward like this is just... so wrong to watch.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

22. "Hand it over, Patrick! I get to play with the Patty Pal today!"

Yours, Mine and Mine, 191 points

17 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #4 @Wintermelon43) (-3)

Melon: Honestly, I think this episode is overlooked in terms of most hated episodes. This episode is one of the most annoying and frustrating episodes to me of the series, and my least favorite Patrick episode. In fact, this is even the only episode I hated as a kid. As for why I find this so annoying and frustrating….. well, the first and most obvious thing, is that Patrick is so annoying here. The problem isn’t that he’s frustratingly stupid. The problem is that he’s annoyingly jerkish and childish. Patrick is such a jerk in this episode by not allowing Spongebob to play with the krabby patty toy at all, and refusing to share it for even a minute. It’s not only jerkish and annoying and frustrating, but this whole argument over the toy is really childish as well. While I think Spongebob is justified in being mad at Patrick of course, he still contributes to the whole childish thing because the whole sharing argument is just frustratingly childish and annoying. And to make things even worse, there is such an extremely obvious solution to this conflict. The toy was made so easily that at any moment, Spongebob could have just made his own toy, and then they wouldn’t have to share (and this does happen at the end). This obvious solution makes it so frustrating to watch them not do this and instead continue to do this childish argument over sharing. Also, I hate that “haven’t you learned anything about sharing?” line. It just shows that Patrick learned nothing from the episode, and makes sb lose money for no fair reason. In conclusion, this is a really frustrating, childish, and annoying episode, with an obvious solution they don’t do, annoying characters, painfully annoying conflict, a bad ending, very few good jokes, and the worst Patrick appearance of the show…… until a year ago.

21. "It's the most realistic story I've ever heard!"

The Main Drain, 191 points

17 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #1 @Coffee_lover) (NEW)

Coffee: Here. We. Go.

When people hear a question "What is the worst episode out of all Legends of Bikini Bottom ark?",majority will say singly that Trenhbillies was,or Sponge-Cane on a lesser extent.While I’m agree with group that those 2 suck,I think that all of those people overlooked one really hidden treasure of a wreckage,that not only the worst out of all ark,it’s cracked my personal Number One spot of the worst episode ever made:The Main Drain.It’s honestly a really special episode,but in the most wrong and worst way that I could ever imagine,not because of quality humor,or unforgettable story that I will remember as stand-out for the series,it’s isn’t an unique characters’ interactions,or a beautiful visual presentation,no,all of it’s speciality came at the fact at how progressively lazy this episode ever went.It’s far from begin the only episode that you can call legit "lazy",especially when we went into Season 7’s territory,but the laziness of The Main Drain is the whole new,low form of the terrible writing that this show has ever produced as for date.

My main issue out there is that the entire thing feels obnoxiously broken and uncared since the very beginning.The former of a """""conflict""""" here is the story of Mr Krabs,that introduces to us a actual Main Drain.This story is about two kids,that pulled out the big plug and right after the entire ocean been rusted into the hole,since then nobody was ever heard from...where do I even should start here?The whole thing made no connection or sense grammatically in the slightest,if Bikini Bottom been pulled into giant hole,how it’s still on it’s normal place?Or townspeople that live in it?Maybe you will found pretty dumb that I’m pointing this out that obvious here,but apparently actual episode isn’t pointed that whatsoever.Spongebob isn’t a show that based on facts and facts only,sure,but it’s one thing when it’s something as minor,silly point like,let’s say,when there’s fire underwater,or if it has any connection with previous scenes and scenes that go after,but the whole plug thing is the the first draft here,and treat it so indifferently is really obnoxious to me.Another point that would’ve be a good argument is that it’s might be a "joke" or "irony",that it’s about one thing but it also completely opposite of what we heard about...no,episode doesn’t even try to make that,it’s just a bad and ignorant plot point that been thrown out and doesn’t wanted to protect itself(well,it did at the end,but we going to talk about that sooner).And if at first it’s been just a tale,then episode ruined this argument completely with adding a plot twist with Mr Krabs and Plankton.Not only it’s make everything even more confusing than it already was,the foreshadowing here is so poorly delivered that I can’t buy it,because episode tried too obvious with hidden this twist since the beginning of it.But it’s not where we going to end this mess,oh no,THE ACTUAL point that made me hate this episode this much is the actual ending.

After everything and everyone been sucked into the a giant hole,the whole story ended up begin just a Patrick’s dream all of that time.I’m going to be honest,the whole "It was just a dream" device is the worst,evil and pathetic cliche and so self-defense I’ve ever meet in any show.It basically make a pass for plots begin as nonsensical,lame,lazy,and unfocused as writer want it to be,it also makes the whole existence of episode to be generously useless in the first place,because,why should I care and sympathize to this conflict or character if anything that happened here is a fake?It’s not the only way to make everything from your episode pointless and make you realize that you wasted your time for a story that bring absolutely nothing(I’m looking at you,Bumper to Bumper),but this is easily the worst way possible to do so.And it’s not like Sleepy Time,when the main point of premise begin a dream is actually worked,because episode tell that to audience since the beginning,and every rules of plot related on this fact,in The Main Drain there’s haven’t beena single hint for that,it’s been about absolutely different things at first,and then it popped out this ending twist out of nowhere.Again,we have a lot of episodes in Spongebob that are lazy as sin,but I can give at least a little credit to them,at least they hasn’t tried to protect themselves with "well it’s a dream so it’s that stupid and nonsensical",while Drain tried really hard to drop off all of responsibility,and ended up begin worse than any of his partners.Heck!Episode hasn’t even bothered to actually ended itself!Episode just cut off itself in the middle of that dream twist,and that’s it.If it’s isn’t the peak of laziness that show ever had as for date,then I have no idea what is. However,episode hasn’t stoped it’s crimes on this spot....

You know what is really aggravate me for the double times?Is that from all of what I talked about above is,at best,3 minutes of episode.What happened for the other 7?You may ask me.The answer is:absolutely nothing that matters for already nonexistent conflict.Rest of the time is basically Spongebob and Patrick just ditching around location as slow and lame as you can make it.Even before we got into the tale that Mr Krabs tell,we got the whole sequence of Spongebob doing pointless things in Krusty Krab for around 2 minutes,yes,there’s been a point that because he worked he didn’t noticed that sink is clogged up,but trust me,for that scenario been wasted 10 seconds,the rest episode could’ve been cut easily and nothing would’t be missed that is important to the conflict.Or how about the middle of episode?After Plankton’s scene,all of things that happened,until last minute,can easily been cut off as well and nothing that matters wouldn’t disappear.That "adventure" “,that Spongebob an Patrick had,didn’t moved the plot for any way and the actual Drain Plug was crafted by episode randomly.And at this point,this episode feels like a Season 5’s short that ended up having more time and so lifelessness of middle post movie.Actually,that’s is an insult to Season 5,because even a damn Waiting has more effect and creativity put into than this failure can even dreaming for.

And speaking of creativity...episode has nothing that I can associated with this word.Other episodes from Legends ark at least has any identical locations or characters in it,even if they suck,but Main Drain not even try to do something with it’s concept,all of locations in episode is just as same that we seen a billions times before on this show,and it’s a shame because I see some room for new premises,like,why episode hasn’t show actual location that appear under this Drain Plug?Or not about that in general?It’s could’ve been a really good idea and that’s only came in my mind just in one second.But no,instead we have a bland filth that forced you to watch bunch of dead-air sequences without any actual energy or uniqueness.

And I didn’t even mention how awful humor in episode was.It’s isn’t a gross-out or Ticket running gag from Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful,but it’s still absolutely unbearable and I wish that they didn’t been added in episode at all.The main reason why of all of delivered jokes failed is because,just like the plot,every single one dragged out as long as 11 minutes can possibly pass.Middle post movie in general has it’s own trick with trying to make the jokes much longer than they really should be,with this abysmal pacing jokes became predictable on a half of the run,or so childish at how obvious it trying to explain the comedy matter to audience rather that tell it naturally.This episode take this rule and messed it up even more than your average bad episodes did.Basically every joke in here goes at least for a 30 seconds more that it really needed to be,gags like Wet Floor sign,Bubble Bus,Squidward begin crushed by a Patrick’s rock...all of those ones deserved at least 14 Oscars Awards of "Worst Delivered Jokes" category.Or how about all of the jokes that rely on Patrick?They are just as awful,not only he in general been crafted into episode "just because lol",all of things that he did are obnoxious and painfully lame,like him turned out the boombox when Mr Krabs told the tale,or the way he "accidentally" pull out the plug at the end,despite a frame ago didn’t holding it and had no motivation to do as in the slightest.And how can I forget about the last quote of episode,"It’s the most realistic story I’ve ever heard !" ,just an another bloody proof that self-irony is the single most dangerous and lowest form of humor that you can meet.The jokes is just at it’s worst and one of the worst of the series.

At the end of the day,I just can’t say anything positive about this episode,at all.Even other episodes that I despise has something remotely minor that made me feel satisfied,even something that isn’t really an episode’s work and more like a silly post on Spongebob Wiki that mentioned this episode.But I had nothing with The Main Drain.There’s non a single joke that worked even on a halfway,plot is ripped apart since the beginning,left the whole thing until last 30 seconds,and ended up begin a fake,showing with it a middle finger to the audience.Characters are you typical one dimensional plot devices that has predictable motivations or no motivations at all.Animation is cheap looking and despite having premise that had potential for a new locations,there’s was non a single one.I honestly cannot even give this episode a zero out of ten,because it brings to me so much negative vibes for begin something like "nothing".I loathe this episode to death,and the fact that harmless stuff like Best Day Ever made the worst list last year yet this atrocious didn’t even get into honorable mention is just beyond my mind.At least it get it’s deserved place on shit-parade this time.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

24. "Is that what you consider clean and disease-free, Krabby?"

Fungus Among Us, 178 points

14 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #1 @Clappy) (-8)

WhoBob: Fungus Among Us is one of those episodes that totally alerted that SpongeBob has gone downhill. Yea, season 4 has episodes people literally dislike but I always found s4 to be mostly good and s5 did actually start off nicely but this episode was the first sign of everything going for the worse. This episode's usage of gross out just doesn't fit in a show where the comedy comes mostly from the dialogue and natural slapstick. I hate the fungus speading SpongeBob and other characters and I get that's the premise but I just can't stand it. The latter half doesn't get much better with Squidward tossing the fungus on the food and everyone eating it. Especially SpongeBob becoming so giant and hideous inside a bubble. Not only that is disgusting, It makes me feel awful for SpongeBob and the costumers attacking him was so cruel and idiotic and the resolution being Gary eating the fungus was so stupid. This is an episode that I still think it's horrible and a great example of why SpongeBob is not a good fit for gross out humor.

23. "Next time, leave the rodeos to me."

Rodeo Daze, 178 points

15 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #2 @BeachBob95) (-3)

jjs: The more the years go by, the more this dreadful episode keeps climbing up my list, making it to my #4 this year. I cannot stress how much I truly loathe this episode. I get why some don’t care about this one as much or forget it exists, which to be fair, I don't blame you for either. For me, at is core, Rodeo Daze is a sad, frustrating and very disappointing, episode. When this episode's plot first got revealed, the premise of SpongeBob going to Texas to save Sandy honestly was a legit interesting idea, more than anything else in S7 at that time. This is one of the only S7 episodes that actually had potential with its premise. We were finally getting to see the gang go to Sandy's homeland, a key focal point of her character. Wow, that's actually creative and cool! The stars were aligning for something actually possibly decent at this point in S7. Unfortunately, all of those expectations were shattered apart with an episode that meanders around with stupidity rather than any sentiment or brain, and completely wastes any sort of potential it had going for it. Even when I ignore the hype I had, looking at it as a finished product, this episode just sucks the whole way through. Nothing about this one works for me. The first sign this episode was doomed is when it decided to start with...a pointless staring contest between SpongeBob and Patrick. Wow! I’m happy we wasted a good first minute of the episode on this. I'll be real, I think this is one of the worst parts of the episode as it contributes to all of the pacing problems plaguing it. It’s obnoxious, boring and pads the episode when they could've used that time on literally anything else. Though that staring contest is very symbolic, because the episode itself past that is also obnoxious, boring and padding. So congrats if it was intentional. The pacing is terrible in this episode, and it contributes to why the ending is so rushed and stupid.

Literally 90% of the episode is buildup to something we barely get to see: the Texas rodeo itself. I don't understand how you have an episode about the gang going to Texas...only to have the actual "going to Texas part" be in the last two minutes. And the last minute is the actual hyped up rodeo, which is over in the blink of an eye. This is up there for one of my personal worst SpongeBob endings. Outside of pacing, I didn't even find any jokes in this episode funny either, to be quite honest. Most of it is wasted on slow, padded out jokes, or mean-spirited "jokes" about people not caring about Sandy (which wore out its welcome fast). This is a relatively minor gripe compared to every other issue the episode has, but I'll admit I'm really not a fan of Sandy's song either. I get what they were going for, but for the whole thing just came off cringe and uggh. Even the aesthetic visuals for the on land portion felt really bad compared to their other work. I guess they didn't care since it was only going to be used at the last two minutes, but I’m not a fan. Also, randomly mentioning that Sandy has a twin brother (which okay sure why not) to set up the "plot" only to not show him at the rodeo was very strange. This episode as a whole is a strange mess, it's like they had to rush to finish this one to meet a deadline. It really feels like this should've been a half-hour special so it could've fleshed everything out more. Seriously, I feel the gang going to Texas was more special worthy than most specials nowadays, but whatever.

Oh yeah, and now for the elephant in the room: the way the main cast don't even care if Sandy never returns is garbage too. It's a giant slap in the face to everything the episode Texas stood for. Haha, they don't care if Sandy returns! Where's the actual joke or the punchline? I know everyone hates Someone's in the Kitchen With Sandy for her treatment there, but I'd argue Rodeo Daze honestly even has worse Sandy treatment than it, albeit a bit more subtle in how it's handled. In Kitchen, at least the people bugging Sandy were just random no name civilians, which you'd expect from the Bottomites at this point in the series. Ultimately, they're background fodder, so it's not like their stupidity matters that much when they're not the forefront. Here however...we have main cast members like Mr. Krabs, Squidward, Patrick and even Gary (seriously, what the hell dude?) who don't give care if Sandy never returns. It's annoying and not funny in the slightest, especially after everything the town did for her in Texas so that she would stay. But who cares about that heartwarming episode, let's throw all of that out the window and waste a great premise just to make half-baked, stupid, and cruel jokes. Even ignoring all of that, there's nothing else of substance in the episode, and for an episode about going to Texas, that's sad. This episode actually could’ve worked under the right circumstances, and knowing they wasted such a neat premise this badly makes me hate it all the more.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

26. "You look fine to me. Now stop being such a baby and make me some money."

The Cent of Money, 165 points

13 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 2 #4's @Loopers @MarcoGagFanatic) (+12)

Ben: Oh boy this episode. This is like if you take the worst elements of every Gary and Mr Krabs post movie episode combined and it becomes a disaster. A disaster where Mr Krabs is punished at the end but still a disaster. This episode has basically to me no actual jokes. To me this is a worse Pal for Gary simply for all the needless mistreatment of Gary throughout. I swear this show has a fetish for Gary not having any kind of good day. There’s the side plot of spongebob being told to do stuff around the krusty Krab as a distraction which is also generally unfunny and overall it combines into a huge mess that landed on #4 on my worst list.

25. "Ah... replica, sweet replica."

Squid's Visit, 168 points

11 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #1 @OWM) (-7)

OWM: So why is this my least favorite episode of all time? AYHN is bleak and depressing, Wringer and KBBB are near-unwatchable with their obnoxious and poorly written characters, and Ink Lemonade fires on all cylinders by being one of the meanest and ugliest episodes ever. But what does Squid's Visit have compared to these four? All of them. Every single component of what I dislike in an episode can be found in these 11 minutes. Bad characterization. Aimless stretches of filler that take up more screen time than the most important parts. A long-winded plot that overall accomplishes nothing. And a gloomy, depressing mood to the episode that conjures up feelings of bitterness and anger instead of fun, happy undersea days. 
The characters. I think this episode has to be the first to not star SpongeBob at all. Who it DOES star is an lifeless, soulless chess piece of a character guided by bad writing instead of an established character we've known for a decade. He wasn't a crazed, obsessed stalker who manipulated people to get what he wanted. He was a well-meaning neighbor who wanted to help his friends. But here, it's all completely thrown out. He wants Squidward to visit his house for absolutely no reason and takes a meaningless suggestion from Patrick as justification to literally steal his property and leave a passive-aggressive note behind. He even practically laughs at Squidward once he calls knowing that the blue tool has no choice but to play right into his plan. 
The filler. Nearly half of the episode could be cut down to about four minutes and the plot would still come across. The first two minutes are dedicated to SpongeBob crying and repeating himself. There's a "rash cream" scene dedicated to watching Squidward slip and fall into a toilet for waaay too long. And of course the "visit" continuously makes the same point over and over again.
The plot. After the entire first half of the episode being complete waste the "visit" mentioned above seems to entirely devote itself to Squidward awkwardly walk around the pineapple and getting surprised at the dead-on replica he's walked into. All the things he notices are oddly specific details, which I guess is the point but also reminds you both how horribly convoluted this is and how much of a bastardization this is to SpongeBob's character. The rash cream scene is actually the highlight of this half. And throughout all of this we can slowly see Squidward's mind just unravel. He's clearly disturbed and traumatized by this and even cries at one point while SpongeBob just kind of watches knowingly and without empathy. 
The ending. After Squidward finally finds the damn vacuum after almost 10 minutes it's revealed his house burned down, which SpongeBob also politely forgot to mention. He then smiles and says that "he's free to stay at MY house." Although this is likely a pretty innocent line all I take from it is that this yellow fucker KNEW this house was being razed and willingly decided not to tell in order to prolong the "visit" proving once and again that this is the most un-SpongeBob-like episode ever.
So uh yeah me no like this episode. Despite some episodes having moments even more unwatchable than what I described, I've never seen one quite like this one that manages to combine it all and showcase it in one. And that's why Squid's Visit takes the #1 spot above any other episode I've seen. It just affects me like no other episode can or has so far.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

28. "You know, SpongeBob, in light of everything that just happened... I lied to you. I am not grateful for anything!"

Sponge-Cano!, 154 points

9 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #4 @Terminoob™) (+23)

OWM: This is on my personal shitlist for being a boring, miserable and convoluted mess. I think I can get across just how dumb this episode is only by summarizing the plot. Let's start: after an unnecessary and unsettling trash monster-starring song sequence we get an incredibly odd and unfunny scene of Squidward berating all the customers of the Krusty Krab. It’s painfully unfunny and drags horribly.  Then the convenient plot device volcano that wasn’t there earlier erupts, bringing in the main plot. This plot literally comes out of nowhere too. Some random ANCIENT WARRIOR from LONG AGO comes to spoon-feed it to us. Afterward the Bottomites unanimously decide to kill Squidward instantly, SpongeBob heroically decides to convince Squidward to open up and tell the town he really does care. But that all gets thrown out once Squidward immediately announces he was lying. The entire sequence of Squidward hanging for dear life now means nothing. And of course, we get the special twist ending. It was his house, despite the fact the warrior made no attempt to correct anyone, resulting in a cheap twist designed to end an already fundamentally broken episode. There are no stakes, no real successful attempts at humor, bad pacing and characterization, and a really jittery and erratic plot that brings in way too much stuff and develops none of it. I could go into more detail but this is actually just me building off an old commentary from a few months ago. Next.

27. "Idiot boy!"

What Ever Happened to SpongeBob?, 159 points

16 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 3 #5's @Terminoob™ @Matt0417 @kev) (+15)

Steel: I was casually excited for the episode while it was being hyped up and even back then when I first saw it, I felt very unimpressed. This special is only at #20 on the list I've submitted, but overtime, it has given me some more things to say. I might even bump up its position after I'm done talking about the problems I've had with the episode. 

Anyways, The main problem with "Whatever Happened to SpongeBob?" was that it was filled with half-baked ideas that all failed to make the episode as interesting as it could've been. The plot centers on SpongeBob leaving Bikini Bottom after a falling out with all of his friends. For an actually interesting plot-line like that, you'd think this would work for a larger scale episode. When the episode is also about SpongeBob suddenly losing his memory, ending up in a different location where bubbles are disallowed, suddenly becomes mayor, and his friends trying to get him back, you'd also think this would definitely work for an episode that is of a larger scale, but it's not. It's a 22-minute special and it sandwiches all these plot points altogether with not so much substance made for each. So that's one point that I have that makes the special feel weak: it could've been better if it were longer.

While i'm still on the topic of the episode's structure that is less than cohesive, each opportunity to greatly execute each of its main ideas end up getting botched. The whole concept of SpongeBob suddenly leaving Bikini Bottom is watered down to the type of plot that would then revolve around him getting amnesia. The concept of SpongeBob forgetting everything isn't so riveting when, throughout most of the episode, he seems to remember such things like blowing bubbles. The subplot with SpongeBob's friends is absolutely nothing spectacular when the sole driving force of their plot is the old-fashioned "Aw fiddlesticks, we need to get SpongeBob back because no frycook means no money!" kind of debacle. Let's look on the bright side though, the special at least gave us Ray Liotta....but of course, he's only around for about two minutes, which results into a simply wasted celebrity cameo.

Have I ever also mentioned that the characterizations were awful? Amnesiac SpongeBob himself is pretty bland considering that a massive chunk of his personality is simply the fact that he is confused and can't remember most of anything. The one trait of Squidward's character that reminds us that he really dislikes SpongeBob is exaggerated. He is so bent on trying to keep SpongeBob from staying in Bikini Bottom to the point where he feels out of character. And while Patrick, Sandy, and Mr. Krabs do feel extremely guilty about making SpongeBob leave, they never directly apologized to SpongeBob for all the hurtful things they said to him. Certainly, Sandy tries to tell him that she was sorry for how she treated him, but she was talking to the amnesiac SpongeBob. After SB does get his memory back, the opportunity for the rest of the main cast to apologize to him is pushed aside. When SpongeBob gets his memory back, you'd think that the first thing he'll remember was all those times his friends called him "Idiot Boy," but apparently not, as SpongeBob is reluctant to stay in Bikini Bottom at first because he remembers that he has his mayoral job to attend to. That is until he changes his mind after he sees a live news report entailing that the disappearance of Mayor CheeseHead has wreaked havoc onto New Kelp City. Woo-hoo?

Speaking of New Kelp City, I should also mention that for a location specially made for this episode, it was really dull for it what it was. To give Atlantis from "Atlantis SquarePantis," some credit, it had quite a lot of interesting world-building to go around. New Kelp City was basically a generalization of, what else, New York City. Finally, to wrap up my thoughts on the episode, let's acknowledge the jokes for a moment. The humor in this special mostly felt non-existent, but for the jokes it did have, most of them were plainly unfunny and mean-spirited like the whole "Idiot Boy" gag and the one scene where a rando in New Kelp City furiously tells SpongeBob that he's a jobless deadbeat. If those are some of the episode's ideas for good jokes, then that's not a very good sign.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

30. "Has anyone seen my socks?"

The Nitwitting, 152 points

11 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #1 @BeachBob95) (NEW)

Coffee: Pretty much anyone who aware on those premises know one simple take:Patrick’s based episodes from the last years suck.While post-sequel seasons as a whole love balanced characters and make some new interesting interactions with them,something specifically with Patrick went out of trials that hands down disappointing,if not low-key insulting.His random and childish behavior at times can be amusing at short cameos(even then at times he can be really annoying as well like in Clam Whisperer or Drive Happy)but it’s just can’t be the main entertainment for an 11 minutes,because it’s isn’t for what I’m love and appreciate comedy on this show in the first place.And possibly the worst part of this,is that levels of Patrick’s badness with every upcoming episode is unpredictable,you can have just an messy mediocrity like Old Man Patrick,and then have..this thing.I’m gonna be honest,pretty much since the announcement of the premise,my expectations for episode were even lower than a zero,in fact,I worried that Nitwitting ended up begin even worse than some other really inky post sequel episode that doesn’t need any introduction.Fortunately,it’s not as bad,but oh boy it’s still suck a lot.

On the surface,I honestly can’t even tell what is this episode even about.Other Patrick’s episodes from recent times at least had an basic plot and conflict,even if they suck.But Nitwitting didn’t bothered with making any real goal or focus for at least first 6 minutes,and even after that those attempts failed apart.But don’t worry,episode still found something for full out the space:dumb jokes.This is one of the dumbest episodes I’ve ever seen in any show and I wish I exaggerated right now,I don’t dislike visual presentation or overall style of new seasons by any means(in fact,I really like it)but in this episode,all of attempts at any humor is a another level of juvenile nonsense.If any other average mediocre Patrick ep,at worst,can bring one or two gross or super stupid gag on the table,Nitwitting blasts with stuff like Tongue Handshake and Spit Jar Drinking with every single,yes,every single second ratio.And not to mention that this time Patrick isn’t the only one who been an intolerable donkey,now it’s the whole community,and honestly they don’t have absolutely any differences from what Patrick portrayed here,witch made episode for 10 times more painful than it already was.

And only after 6 minutes of that,episode finally bother to moving on the next plot point,but don’t become positive this fast,with that Nitwitting became somehow even worse.The whole civic duty thing not only feels like an diet Good Neighbors(an episode that isn’t one of the greatest to begin with),the way society executed that is beyond obnoxious.Remember episodes like original Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy?Here Spongebob and Patrick also tried to help but due of their silliness,made situations more complicated,but this episode made conflict felt more natural,reasonable,and characters had an understanding of when they need to stop.But in Season 12’s episode the whole sequence is about characters smashing and destroyed property of Bikini Bottom without any reason,the only defense that episode managed to find is saying "We have no idea" with is a failure of an excuse even for the joke.Heck,why townspeople didn’t prepared or simply arrested them already?Since episode said that empty head society doing that every month.If in first half dumb things at least been just a random clips,context of the second half made that much worse and despicable at how badly episode treat stupidity,and even for the last minute,where Sandy cleaned all of Bikini Bottom’s damage.Not only she just appear out of nowhere at the last scene.The whole point of her doing that didn’t made any value because Patrick’s Brainless Society just destroyed everything right after and episode just ended on another idiotic gag.

This episode is not just dumb,it’s an 11 minutes of ultimate stupidity.Even other "dumb" episodes for the most part try to have a set-up and punchlines for their jokes,or have a tame ratio of its delivery of bad humor,but Nitwitting had no mercy for your intelligence and treatment whatsoever.Even without awful sense of humor,it’s one of the worst structured episodes I’ve ever meet on this show.And yes,nobody really expected something redeemable at new Patrick episode,but it’s just a compete deadline for me and a lot of other people that cared for this show.Even previous ones like Pat the Horse or Library Cards has a few decent,if not great jokes,I doubt that there’s anything that even remotely close to begin enjoyable in Nitwitting.I really do hope that we not going to see another Patrick episode with THIS level of execution for awhile,because thanks Neptune that there’s barely anything related to Patrick in new premises.

Clappy: This is the dumbest episode of SpongeBob I’ve ever sat through.

No joke. I’ve practically outgrown the show since I don’t watch new episodes anymore nor do I really want to. But I’ve seen plenty of talk on Discord about this episode in particular. Not like Ink Lemonade levels of hatred or anything, but pretty freaking bad word of mouth.

Then Jjs mentioned about a hour ago that he wished that I saw it so he can know how I feel. Well how thoughtful. I’m on vacation this past week so why not give it a shot. I tried a few other episodes as of late due to word of mouth and some of them were pretty good actually.

This was not. The one thing I will give modern SpongeBob. The animation does look good. What they do with said animation leaves a lot to be desired, but that’s another thing entirely.

But yeah, back to that first sentence. I’ve watched plenty of dumb and stupid episodes of SpongeBob back in 2013 and 2015 for the Worst Episode countdowns of said years. Hell I remember watching Whirly Brains on a wim not too long after and thinking that these guys are seriously running out of ideas for this show. Think about that for a second. An episode where SpongeBob and Patrick take out their brains to play them like drones is not nearly as stupid as this episode.  

But you know what really pissed me off about this episode in particular? What makes me think this is one of the worst episodes of the entire series more so than other infamous semi-recent episode Ink Lemonade? The smug levels of self-awareness about how stupid this episode is:

-The irritatingly annoying club song

-Having SpongeBob drink everybody’s drool (the joke that followed about them actually meaning drink the lemonade was even worse...THERE WAS NO BUILD TO THERE BEING A SECOND OPTION)

-The knowingly self destructive behavior of the nitwitting. They know that this event was going to take place like clockwork and they happily ablige to destroy the entire town.

-Literally how SpongeBob was as a character. You can’t suddenly make him brainless for the back half of the episode without him acting semi-normal a minute after removing his brain. It’s like the plot just wants to show up whenever the hell it wants to. Oh and that out of nowhere drama of jealousy with Patrick’s friendship with the club leader. Get out of here with that forced subplot.

-Time to bring up the animation because it may be nice, but what these guys choose to do with the animation just pisses me off. The intentional amounts of gross out they go for here bothers me way more than it did with Ink Lemonade. At least Ink Lemonade provided some things I’ve never seen from SpongeBob before. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve seen them make intentionally stupid characters on this show with none of them standing out. And they might as well have ripped off Face Freeze with how many weird faces nitwit SpongeBob goes for in this episode.

-The out of nowhere political commentary with Sandy being a part of FEMA. WHAT!? And then having Patrick and his club come back and destroy everything FEMA rebuilt...are they implying The Nitwitting is a natural disaster that costs the town tons of money? Are they aiming at our president and calling him a nitwit (they aren’t wrong)? Why the fuck was that tacked on and why did it end with the nitwits winning!? Why is an episode titled The Nitwitting actually making me this far in depth about possible political commentary?

I hate it. I hate how smugly stupid this episode is. I hate how they play off Patrick’s destructive stupidity for laughs. I hate how the plot is practically nonexistent. And most of all, I hate that idiotic jukebox number that played throughout the episode. That only tacks onto the arrogance that what the characters are doing is dumb but they will do it anyway behavior I get from this episode.

I know it’s too late to change my Worst List for the 2019 edition, but this is Top 10...hell Top 5 at this rate. I actively felt myself getting dumber by watching this inane awfulness.

29. "I get to show you the ropes, Mrs. Puff! Hey, it's kind of like I'm the teacher!"

Summer Job, 152 points

12 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #1 @Charles Manson) (-3)

jjs: Summer Job is quite frankly, an obnoxious, tedious and annoying episode. That doesn't mean it had to be on my list, because there certainly are a lot of contenders in the show's history meeting all three of that criteria. However, this one stands out to me in more ways than one because good lord, is SpongeBob absolutely awful in this episode. When you don't like the main character of the episode, you're in for a ride. It also wastes a potentially promising premise with a role reversal between the teacher and student, but of course in Season 7 fashion, it gets executed in one of the most grating and dull ways. Throughout the whole episode, I sat there going to myself "yeah, this isn't funny, can I have literally anything else?" As time goes by, you really start to feel bad for Mrs. Puff and wish she'd just get away from SpongeBob, but alas. Maybe if anything SpongeBob did in the episode was slightly amusing, I'd forgive the nautical nonsense Puff endures, but shocker, it isn't! Where are the actual jokes in this episode? Where is the actual fun? I'm not annoyed by the Kruff tease scene anymore because of post-sequel sort of making up for it, but it was still kind of stupid the way it was presented here. This episode has literally nothing to offer outside of some cheap slapstick near the end. This was #15 on my list this year, and honestly, I don't think I made the right call with that position. If I had the opportunity, I'd probably either swap this with Fish Bowl's spot on my list or put it a bit higher, because I still cannot stand this episode and find it downright irritable the more the years pass by. At this point in the series I was getting really sick of the format of Boating School episodes (if you want to call this one that at all) thanks to this one, and I'm glad they decided to shake them up in future seasons (for better or worse) if it means I don't have to get Summer Job 2.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

32. "I've been replaced by a sandwich!"

To Love a Patty, 149 points

15 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #7 @CakeCup) (-5)

OWM: I didn't ask for commentary here because everyone was busy. That's fine I guess because I actually have something to say about this episode. To me this episode has a sort of ironic enjoyment I can’t place my finger on. This plot is so fucking bad and ridiculous that I seriously cannot hate it. The song actually makes me laugh for this reason. Seeing SpongeBob obsess over a fucking sandwich is far funnier than it should be. Him massacring an entire group of innocent scallops, even brutally tearing one apart with his fingers, is so horrible and in such poor taste that it wraps around to becoming funny again.

There is some genuinely bad stuff here, of course. SpongeBob drops all reason and logic in order to screw this patty. He abandons his famous philosophy of satisfying customers and it just feels wrong. He actually brings out the “fry cook oath” and displays actual common sense for a few moments, until it gets completely derailed! From there, the rest of the episode is just straight delusion. He casually professes love for a patty that’s already starting to mold after six hours and abandons his beloved and trusted friends for the damn thing. There’s absolutely no humor during any of this besides laughing at just how bad this episode is. The closest thing available is the moldy closeups, which are obviously in poor taste. Even the ending feels really gross and inconclusive. Mr. Krabs literally convinces SpongeBob to eat Patty knowing just how rotten and disease-filled it is. 

So is this episode bad? Yes. Do I hate it? No. Something about it is just so preposterous and ridiculous I feel like the writers were fucking with us this time around.

31. "If you want someone demolished, I guess you have to demolish them yourself!"

Demolition Doofus, 150 points

12 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #1 @Cha) (-8)

Dman: Demolition Doofus is bad. Shocker, I know. Every typical SpongeBob hater remembers the episode for that one infamous moment, but surprise! There are other problems with this episode as well! It begins with SpongeBob inadvertently helping Squidward out with his gardening (that’s as good as this episode’s gonna get) and heads to take another boating test. Remember the oral part of the test? That’s long gone at this point. Anyway, SpongeBob gets right into it and makes the same mistake three times, causing Mrs. Puff to inflate more than she ever has and she crashes into a tower, horribly deforming her for life. At the hospital SpongeBob goes on to make a joke about Mrs. Puff’s condition, which doesn’t help as she’s already pretty pissed. While Mrs. Puff is in the hospital, we also get a look at the newest casualties of the recent demolition derby; apparently it’s “quite entertaining” to look at. Mrs. Puff then figures out that if she can get SpongeBob to risk his life in a demolition derby, she may be able get rid of him… forever.

Yeah… even after 7 years, Mrs. Puff’s desires to kill SpongeBob are pretty uncomfortable for viewing eyes. She convinces him to join the derby for extra credit, and he obliges. The next few minutes are just SpongeBob miraculously avoiding the threats of the other derby contestants, and Puff yelling and wanting SpongeBob to just die already. When all seems said and done, Puff takes matters into her own hands and joins the derby herself. SpongeBob somehow figures out how to drive and avoids all of Puff’s attacks, leading them back to the boating school. Funny thing is, she causes more damage to others and her own school rather than causing damage to SpongeBob. The episode ends with the two derby cars crashing into each other, causing Mrs. Puff to inflate, and SpongeBob remarks that everything is back to normal. So much for the deformity. The doctor literally said she ruptured her inflation sack. It was popped wide open. How can she even inflate? We all know continuity doesn’t exist in the SpongeBob universe, but within the same episode? I’m not joking when I say that part makes me hate the episode more compared to the death threats. It’s a good thing sure, and it brings things back to the status quo, but there is no logical way I can see that she could reinflate with the parameters that the episode set up. I would say that they could have done it so many different ways that it could’ve been possible for Mrs. Puff to get better, but no. There’s no way. If she was deformed for good she’d have the excuse to kill SpongeBob (which is a terrible thing to do as is), but the show wouldn’t return to normal. If she could get better over time on the other hand, the show could go back to normal in one episode but her drive to kill SpongeBob would be even more jarring than before. There is no way that this episode can logically work while keeping the show’s standards and that is mainly why it’s so bad to me.

Carotte: Ooh boy, this is one of the episodes I always hated to death since the first time I watched it. WARNING: long rant coming. The episode starts with SpongeBob falling his boating test in a very stupid way. I know he is usually reckless at driving but here the writers didn't even try to add comedy. Compare No Free Rides' beginning with this beginning. In both scenes, SpongeBob can't drive correctly but which one is generally the funniest? I would say the former by a distance that is almost as long as the Earth-Moon distance. Anyways, the hospital scene is bad in every way. Why would SpongeBob laugh at someone who is injured? That is so out of character. Not to mention, Mrs. Puff's reaction is pretty harsh over a joke. Sure, it was offensive but if I was her, I wouldn't try to kill SpongeBob by holding his nose. After a few scenes I don't like, the Demolition Derby is introduced. Mrs Puff wants SpongeBob to join it JUST BECAUSE SHE WANTS HIM TO DIE KNOWING THAT HE IS TOO WEAK FOR THAT (Sorry for the yelling but this episode really pisses me off). After all these crashes, SpongeBob is surprisingly winning...ok. BUT, Mrs Puff gets mad and joins in attempt to kill SpongeBob until the end of the episode where she inflates again...wtf. "Now everything is back to normal!" says SB. I think nothing is normal in that episode. The ending feels so rushed, it's like the writers wanted to do more attempts to hurt SpongeBob but thet just realized they already made 11 minutes so they decided to immediately inflate Mrs Puff and boom, the episode ends. In conclusion, Demolition Doofus is a frustrating, awful and annoying episode that is unbearable to watch. Enough said (true believers ).

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

34. "Welcome to Atlantis. I've been expecting you."

Atlantis SquarePantis, 136 points

9 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #4 @4EverGreen) (+2)

4EverGreen: Man, I cannot BELIEVE we're already at the point where some of the episodes that I picked for commentary are appearing on this list. In any case, "Atlantis Squarepantis" is probably the PERFECT example of an over-hyped "Spongebob Squarepants" special, that doesn't have the plot or necessary special traits to back up its status of being over 30 minutes. Either, the special should've been UNDER 30 minutes, and cut out all the unnecessary filler, or they should've gone with some STRONGER ideas for the special, like getting David Bowie to ACTUALLY sing! And the songs that DO get sung in this special, aren't even THAT memorable! Not to mention that none of the ideas presented within this special even WORK even WITHIN the context of this special, save for Sandy's 16 bit video game adventure. If they REALLY wanted to make a special, they should've gone with a WHOLE episode of Sandy's 16 bit video game adventure, rather than this sad excuse of a special we DID get! Enough said, true believers! 

Slug: Atlantis is one of those episodes where it is somewhat of an anomaly to review. It's a very long episode, so surely there has to be tons of things to review and talk about, right? Well, wrong. Despite its length, Atlantis has zero substance in it, and while tos is an abysmal episode for a variety of reasons, Atlantis' problems are more simple. I mean you actually had the potential for a good storyline here, but what ends up happening is so lame, there isn't even a conflict until they pop the bubble at the very end of the episode. If you think Waiting doing nothing for 7 minutes was bad, how about basically nothing for 44 minutes? I mean if you love characters singing about their interests then maybe there's something here for you? The whole point of a musical is that the songs should carry the plot in some way, but every single one of these songs carries the same purpose and it's very tedious. It doesn't help that none of them are well-written. They do try some different animation styles but all of them are highly bland, including the videogame sequence which I found quite disappointing. I know some people don't mind this episode but I find it to be a complete waste of time. It's just a worthless 44 minutes that makes me feel like I was robbed. For me if an episode does nothing entertaining for 40+ minutes then it deserves a spot in my bottom 5.

33. "Tell it to your mama, Squidward!"

Sportz?, 136 points

11 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank 2 #1's @PEPSI✭MAN @kylie) (-3)

SOF: So, you may recall my reasoning why i liked it from last year....well, i decided to make a guest commentary for this cause why not? Now you may be confused, why SOF still likes it....let me explain I still liked Sportz because it has some things that made laugh here. Sure, Squidward acts jerkish to SB & Patrick for not knowing how sports works...but here's a thing: it makes sense that SB & Patrick being clueless on how this equipment works, and what does it do things works for them. Obviously, Squidward plays the role as bad teacher as it proves how it should be showing them how to play. Sandy came near the end is reasonable because she WAS looking her sports stuff which is why it necessary to me. She knows Squidward behind the scheme on unfair rules which it doesn't seems right to Sandy. As she challenged Squidward to see how good he is, and you know what? She beats him in smart way. This is why i still liked it so much it's not because the plot worked, Hell, I even rewatched this before doing this commentary to understand why's good IMO. I can understand why people hated it. is it b/c of lead in to Kids Choice Sports Awards? Maybe. Honestly, i would personally put this best episode imo. But yeah, this episode is good for me.

Overall, I think this is one of best episode in s10 IMHO.

WhoBob: I still find myself disappointed by how much Sportz could have been an actual fun episode. Think about it, the entire episode based on characters doing every single sport activities, doesn't that sound awesome? Well, too bad because what we have gotten was an episode about...SpongeBob and Patrick hurting each other in a very painful and unfunny way. I got why they wanted to go with this direction. It was a classic case of SpongeBob and Patrick doing something that Squidward gets annoyed of and he wants to use it in his advantage. After all, some episodes like Idiot Box and Snowball Effect didn't have that much action but unlike thoese two episodes, Sportz didn't do anything creative with its jokes. It was all repetitive SpongeBob and Patrick hurting each other and Squidward watching it in his own amusement. It made Squidward a total dickhead and yeah, the episode acknowledged it but I just didn't give a crap about the conflict when SpongeBob and Patrick were total buffoons. They were so happy, even when their bones were kept broken and that was literally the only joke they played with this episode that I actually recall. I could also complain that how in the hell our main characters didn't know what sport means when they played sports in the fucking The Fry Cook Gmaes. I can live with some minor contiunity issues but this was just dumb and it showed our main characters were dumb. It didn't help when Sandy arrived to kick Squidward's ass and again, this would have been satisfying If Sandy didn't arrive to be such a deus ex machina to the conflict. I also hated that she was sidelined in a story where all of her sports junk was sent to SpongeBob and Patrick only to appear at the very end. You know how this episode could have been actually entertaining? Maybe have Squidward manipulate Patrick into having a competition with SpongeBob and Sandy or SpongeBob and Patrick versus Squidward and Sandy or Squidward trying to have amusement of SpongeBob and Patrick injuring each other, except they don't injure each other and they actually have a safe fun. Just give me a conflict that would be actually fun and exciting. We could have had some really clever jokes along the way. This episode could have been something. Instead, it was all nothing. It hurts how much this episode ended up being one of the most lifeless episodes of this show and that's why it's on my list. It was not even an actual horrific episode to me but it was so painfully boring and tedious that I'm happy to see it on this list.

Prez:  *This is actually my first time sitting through this episode in full. Since it's release, I've seen some of the bad shit I'd have to witness in full one day, from pictures, transcripts and clips alone, but, the day has finally come. Is Sportz? really worthy to be as high as it is on my worst list, just because there's aspects I heard that I knew I was probably going to hate anyway. I shouldn't be unfair...

So Sportz starts off very lazily to get the plot going, showing SpongeBob taking out the garbage with Patrick inside (and to also remind you for the million time on how cool and creative our visual animation and expressions can be, we got mr BOB JACQUES as our animator!! We don't need to worry about the writing part! we get it, you're gorgeous), and then we spend a minute and a half of them finding out what's in Sandy's mail package of sport gear and trying to figure out what the fuck it's useful for (just the usual stupidity to give it some "jokes" to cut some time off), and once that scene is over, we transition to...

shot of Squidward's house

...

O FORTUNA PLAYS*

Oh boy. A Squidward-centric episode. In a goofy, wacky era of the series... and in a season I mostly haven't seen and heard amplifies what 9B's style was getting at. Nothing can go wrong! So far, not bad though. A little over the top anger just from hearing SpongeBob and Patrick's shenanigans, but he's had to deal with shit writing for the past decade. Rodger's performance is actually nice, just for the wrong reasons. His yelling and voice could do wonders with this if it weren't used for insanity. When explaining what sports is to two dunderheads when one of them shouldn't be this brainless (there's a difference between being stupid, and being naïve. This is just ooc SpongeBob that screams Post-Movie), we get the angel/devil joke that a lot of animation media has, now we know why Squidward is so mental now, he lets his demons do all the talking! I worry this is where all hell breaks loose from here on out in the episode...

...and it kind of does. From the get go, the rest of the episode is Squidward causing SpongeBob and Patrick to harm themselves badly in a cartoonish manner while he laughs (and with some of the laughter he makes, jesus christ...), it feels very, very sadistic. It's uncomfortable as a Squidward fan to even stomach. This is not something Squidward would ever do, this is not Squidward at all, actually... so from now on in this annoying commentary, I'm gonna call him Ren Hoek. That's what he's acting like, a sadistic, psycho, ugly asshole (with some unappealing facial expressions here and there. GOTTA SHOW OFF HOW CARTOONY WE ARE, DON'T WE BOB XDDDD). Besides the disgust I get from watching Ren hurt moronic SpongeBob and Patrick, it's just very unfunny and boring. There's "jokes" (like the sports fan joke and a pun or two), but they're not funny or clever. Most of the humor this episode, and like most of this era, focuses on how cartoony and over the top the slapstick is, and I don't hate slapstick either. Slapstick can definitely fuckin work, I'd use it for my own creations, but you need to do more than just slapstick x100. You need that variety besides showing off the way you do slapstick then focus on nothing else.

So then, the best character comes in. Sandy comes across what Ren is doing, and I wasn't expecting to root for her too much until she spits out a truth bomb that ACCURATELY fits Ren (I mean Squidward) as a character for most of this fucking era: "That's pretty low, Squidward. Even for YOU!" THANK YOU SO MUCH. THAT'S WHAT I WANTED TO HEAR. The drawback to this would be they made Ren do a thing that's extremely over the top and cruel for his character's standards, just so they can teach him a lesson to not be out of character, and give him a taste of his own medicine. Though, this is Ren we're talking about, not Squidward, so I'm allowing it. I'M ROOTING FOR YA SANDY. so the rest of the episode is Sandy giving Ren WAAAACKY CREATIVE SLAPSTICK. It's a little bit over the top, but I don't fucking care this one time. I really don't. And bam, she saves SpongeBob and Patrick from not thinking logically and stopping because of Ren's mental games. And REN is a winner too omg!!!!!!!!, and combust in an unappealing manner. But hey, he deserves it... like a lot, since it isn't like him.

My problem is though, is this really what the writer wants to do with the character a lot now? Make him act agitated and then make him do things he would never do, just so he can get karma when you've been given him karma in general for years? It's very done to death, and it's why I do my own stuff with Squidward. You can give him more fun things to do, but you just stoop him down to a lower level and make him very one note with the negative traits he has. You can really work wonders with his traits but giving him a dash of humor and make him more likeable again. Look, I know I like Pineapple Fever, and it's one of those episodes where Squidward gets karma and going insane with having to stay in a storm with SpongeBob and Patrick, but at least for me, the stupidity it had, was actually entertaining... but that's one of the few times it actually was for me. They've done this shit many times, and most of the time it's just so boring and frustrating to watch. THIS is definitely on of them. Gorgeous, fluid animation wasted just to make this show Ren and Stimpy underwater. Any of SpongeBob's, charm, wit, and originality, thrown all away just to make the world and it's characters wacky, with barely any ground to keep it from being unique or actually entertaining. I used to be called crazy for thinking this stuff when it first happened, but now it seems we have fans divided or noticing this issue with this era (even people who do enjoy it way more than I do), I think it's time for a change of style again. Make SpongeBob have the awesome animation it has, but make all the characters (ESPECIALLY THE ONE I LIVE FOR RELIGIOUSLY) likeable and funny again. This show's so obsessed with something it rarely was, and is pushing away any other creative form of humor it once used, and I wouldn't complain about an era I do like a tiny bit SO MUCH.

So, join me, fellow SpongeBob fans, and together, we can stop this lowbrow nonsense from oversaturating this show's potential it STILL has to have... or at least kill Devil Squidward since he SUCKS And to think this is the same guy who would write a Post-Sequel ep I do like (Squid Noir, even though that ep still has a lot of flaws)... what the fuck...

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

36. "You! You ruined my free toy!"

Waiting, 119 points

13 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #4 @Clappy) (-12)

Ben: This episode is a complete waste of time. A lot in it is flawed. The episode has SpongeBob being a bit of a dick to everyone and just isn’t that well done to me. I mean how else would we get epic humor like how SpongeBob missed his own birthday. The pacing is slow (likely on purpose to simulate the waiting for the toy). While it is likely intentionally slow that doesn’t make the episode any more or less fun to watch. Why the writers felt this needed to be 11 minutes I don’t know. It was even paired with a short too, and I feel it would have worked better that way. The whole episode stands out as a boring slog that I honestly wish was like 6 minutes shorter. It’s almost as if this would wo-wait a second the plot was adapted from a 2003 SpongeBob book that shares the writer of this episode. That explains why it’s so weird in pacing, the plot structure was not made around an 11 minute episode. While this episode is relatively low on my list (#21) I still really do not like this episode.

35. "I promised Sandy I'd take extra-special care of her treedome while she's at the Inventor's Convention today. And that is exactly what I intend to do."

House Sittin' for Sandy, 134 points

12 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #3 @SRRS) (NEW)

OWM: House Sittin' for Sandy consists of about two minutes of actual plot with nine minutes of absolute nothing to pad it out. It spends most of its time either repeating itself (mostly Patrick saying phrases over and over again to SpongeBob) or completely pointless scenes that don’t go anywhere. These include a full morning routine scene of SpongeBob getting ready only to find out the Krusty Krab is closed, SpongeBob literally just doing what Sandy told him to without it being interesting or exciting, and a “worm incubator” that seems to be set up like a Chekhov’s gun but instead is just another useless thing to watch. The episode even has the balls to recycle footage of the robots destroying the dome like they didn’t already show it not even two minutes ago. Afterward Sandy then delivers the magical twist that she wanted SpongeBob to destroy the dome even though it probably would have been way easier to just ask him and Patrick directly. The robots then destroy both the dome and the magic gun again with the power of recycled footage, and the episode acts like it’s SpongeBob’s fault despite him not really doing anything wrong. This is a completely hollow episode that tries to fill itself up with nothing but overly long, pointless scenes tied together with what was already a pretty uninteresting plot. Overall the episode both accomplishes nothing and spends most of its time on plot elements that add up to nothing.

RDSP: Ah, finally something that's in the latter half of my worst list. Getting that out of the way though, I despise this episode personally. This is about the peak of Season 8 mediocrity, and godDAMN does it show. This episode is painfully slow-paced, the visuals are awful, the animation is subpar... I could go on. But the writing is the worst part. Y'know, I'm being generous calling it "writing", because so much of it is empty non-writing that just makes an already arduously slow episode even more painful. Oh, and the ending makes literally everything in the entire episode pointless. While I wish this episode could've gotten lower on the list, I'm content it's at least on it.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

38. "How can I go back to work without... without Spat?!"

All That Glitters, 113 points

13 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #4 @Wumbo) (-16)

Dman: All That Glitters is one of those episodes that I used to not get the hate for. I only remembered it as “that episode where SpongeBob breaks his spatula and stuff happens”. Upon rewatch I found that I was wrong, as there is no “stuff” that happens. Nothing happens in this episode, or at least nothing of value. The episode begins with SpongeBob accidentally breaking his spatula in two while trying to serve an oversized patty, and then we have the pleasure of seeing him screaming and crying for 45 seconds straight. Two things to say right now: One, SpongeBob’s crying here is the most annoying it’s ever been, only being beaten out by A Day Without Tears, and Two, too many jokes in this episode go on for way longer than they need be. Examples include SpongeBob’s crying as I mentioned, an overly long montage sequence of SpongeBob reminiscing the good times with Spat that could’ve been done in a few seconds, and a few more that I’ll mention when I get there. As SpongeBob leaves Spat at the hospital, still heartbroken, he immediately gets sidetracked by a fancier looking spatula that he can’t purchase. Guess what? We spend another good deal of time watching SpongeBob give up everything he has to please the salesman fish (at one point they use the exact same voicelines four times in a row!), and the deal is only made after he sells his clothes. While SpongeBob walks back to work, we get the beautiful image of a grandma... “staring” at him as he walks by. I think it’s supposed to be funny, but it isn’t.

We spend another chunk of time at the Krusty Krab to give praise to the god that is Le Spatula himself, only for him to refuse to make a single Krabby Patty, insult SpongeBob, and run off. Huh, some god. It is at this moment that SpongeBob realized he fucked up. He abandoned his fast food companion for an asshole. He has nothing now. His only shot at something is Spat. He finds Spat at the hospital, but he isn’t really forgiving, and I wouldn’t blame him for this except for the fact that Spat knows nothing about the events in the episode. How did he know SpongeBob betrayed him? How could he feel bitterness towards SpongeBob for something he was unaware of? I don’t know... eventually Spat forgives SpongeBob, and we end as we started, meaning another monster-size patty is served, but this time SpongeBob breaks into pieces, and that's it. Though the worst of the repetitive episodes came in around season 6, this is a really bad example right in the middle of season 4. Even if you discount the repetition, the episode itself contains almost no jokes, has a moral that is botched as I don’t even know who’s in the right, and is a complete snore-fest. Just the fact that I couldn't remember any parts of this episode outside of the basics is a testament to how bland it is. Season 4 has a lot of middle-of-the-road episodes, but this is not one of them and I’m frankly ashamed that I used to loop in this garbage on the same echelon as all of the other ones.

37. "If we're not going to go around town pretending to be Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, then who is?!"

Shuffleboarding, 114 points

11 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #9 @CakeCup) (-8)

OWM: oops i forgot to ask more people for commentary to do this one so nobody submitted anything. But seriously, this episode is the most jittery thing ever. There are no important plot developments at all in the first half. Aside from Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy getting injured it's all just annoying banter and screaming from Patrick and SpongeBob who keep repeating themselves or some reason. And of course there's no actual shuffleboarding tournament shown but that's more of a nitpick than anything. The second half then turns into a completely bizarre and confusing storyline that makes no sense at all. The reasons for jailing people range from a little goofy, up to forced and awkward, and then just plain mean by the time Man Ray shows up. Weird how this episode had time for a full laundromat fight scene but no time to structure something funny at all. I shouldn't have to mention the ending either, which is notorious for being one of the series' worst. This somehow escaped my list but if it made it back on another day I wouldn't be surprised.

[SBC's Top 50 Worst Episodes Ever! (20 Years Edition)]

40. "Face freeze? I thought that was a myth!"

Face Freeze!, 105 points

8 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #4 @Coffee_lover) (0)

Coffee: While this episode isn’t nearly my least favorite of all time, I always understood out of all "it’s not that bad" statements for any famous episodes the least. What people even see here to defend in the first place?Any other episodes,absolutely any,has even the minimalistic impact put into them,even something as soulless as House Sittin for Sandy,irritating as Choir Boys,or downright offensive like Stuck in the Wringer had it’s "background" with some noticeable qualities put into them,as much as they bad.But Face Freeze???This episode is absolutely nothing but a eye torture.While some people don’t minded faces that episode has,I still stand by it begin really irritating here.I don’t think that the fact that faces themselves has a new,different look and more detailed compared to former seasons is bad...but those particular expressions I’m just can’t handle.I really,really don’t like the style of middle-post movie’s designs,it’s not I’m want to say that I dislike people who drawn them,I think that Robert Cory is a very talented guy and I’m adore his works out of context or in shows where his edgy exaggeration have its fitting place(just looks at his works in Gravity Falls for example).But in context of Spongebob,they felt flat and unneeded,all of those over-detailed vines and tooth are just not something that belongs to this universe.I prefer animation style of recent seasons more because,while they are different indeed,they still has the positive and colorful vibe that made me love Spongebob in the first place.But into Face Freeze,all of those faces made my eyes burns during watching the whole thing,even Season 6’s episodes has some timing before throw some ugly looking face on the screen,here this caricature disaster goes with every single frame,not to mention the stiffness of Season 8’s animation didn’t helped with this situation in the slightest.

But okay, that’s was only problem of episode on the surface.Some people will say right now "well I’m don’t mind the faces and the rest episode was fine",but here’s one thing,that "rest" doesn’t exist and never existed.Say whatever you want about stuff like The Splinter,Fungus Among Us or To Love a Patty,as much as they suck and failed at begin entertaining with their gross-out attempts(even though I don’t dislike The Splinter that much),they has some actual conflict and development put into them,not to mention that despite them begin gross,they take some to time to breath out before distract you with some junk.Face Freeze,if you cut the faces,is an absolute dead air,technically,there’s was a conflict,but it’s nothing but a cheap-ass Hooky copy,instead of telling creative story with a good message,it’s nothing but a slideshow of caricature faces that doesn’t work for this show.Not to mention that all of those faces take tooooooooooooooooo much of a time that just throw out any substance,if you cut all of scenes that just stoped the whole thing to show another disgusting face,I’m doubt there’s going to me more than a 2 minutes in total,if not less.Characters doesn’t even have any actual reason or motivation for making all of those faces too,it’s just started with Spongebob and Patrick doing idiotic expressions,and it’s ended with that.Oh yeah,episode doesn’t have actual ending either,the whole thing just cut off from another idiotic faces force.Episodes that I mentioned above has at least some variations at humor,they aren’t funny for sure,but I still got something from them.Face Freeze...think that those disgusting expressions is enough to be a comedy genius and let this begin the only joke for 11 minutes,literally,there’s non a single other attempt at comedy that any different.

And that’s why I’m having it this high on my list:There’s absolutely nothing defendable or redeemable to pointing out.And I’m still fail to see how this episode isn’t "all that bad",and made a previous lists pretty low.There’s just nothing going for unless if you’re a fan of Robert Cory’s artwork,but even then I think you better just go to the google and find his concept arts on the internet,because actual episode thanks to the low budget of Season 8 made his designs looks much more stiff and lifeless.Even besides visuals begin painful,or at least just unnecessary,there’s basically no plot and an similar premise that been executed way better back in Season 1,the way episode attempted sense of humor is incredibly childish,even really dumped down actually.The characters feels completely off.And the highest definition of bore and blandness that can’t bring me to finish this garbage even more.I can’t see any positives for this one unless if something like "it’s not as cancerous as Squid Baby"counts as a plus. And yes people who unironically compare this episode to post sequel era should be evacuated from this planet,like what is your problem people.

39. "Now that you two have ruined the last good thing in my life... I think I'll go slam my head in the door. Repeatedly."

Cephalopod Lodge, 110 points

11 out of 41 lists (Highest Rank #3 @Patty Rose) (-4)

Melon: This episode is one I’m surprised doesn’t get farther into the list compared to other squid abuse episodes. This episode has some of the worst things that happen to Squidward without being entertaining enough to justify it. The episode involves Squidward losing the one thing he looked forward to in his life, because Spongebob and Patrick needed to stalk Squidward because “he seemed happy” and the lodge thinks it’s justified to kick someone out of their club because someone else followed them when they didn’t even know. Spongebob and Patrick don’t even take responsibility for it either; they refuse to blame themselves in the scene where they try to convince the guy to let Squidward back in the lodge. I also hate how Spongebob and Patrick’s idea of a way to make Squidward feel happy is stinging his tongue with a jellyfish. While I like the sockpuppet gag stuff, what happens after is one of the worst endings of the series; Spongebob and Patrick just have to go out of the sock puppet, which causes Squidward to get kicked out of the lodge again……. So Spongebob and Patrick sting Squidward’s tongue again…… The thing that annoys me about this ending is that they didn’t even need to do it. They could of easily ended the episode with Squidward getting back into the lodge and it would’ve helped the episode so much. Having him get kicked out again was completely unnecessary. While I do think “bad things happen to a character” is a bad reason to hate an episode if it still does entertaining stuff, the problem with this episode is that what happens to Squidward is really brutal; and while I wouldn’t care about that if the episode was entertaining, it really wasn’t besides the sockpuppet gag, and that isn’t enough to stop this from being a bad episode because of it.