012b. Super Sitters

[Shark Tale]

Premieres: Monday, April 10th at 5pm ED/PT

Plot: Patrick and SpongeBob go back in time to watch Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy when they were new.

[Dragonball Z]

This might be the first episode of "The Patrick Star Show", where Spongebob had just about as much screen-time and impact on the episode's plot that Patrick did! As it turns out, boredom and access to a time machine are NOT a good combination when it comes to two, roughly teenage boys obsessed with Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy! Instead of time traveling to when the episodes of "Mermaid Man And Barnacle Boy" were new, they time travel to when Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy THEMSELVES were new! Apparently, there's been a minor 'Retcon', because now, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy have BOTH known each other since they were babies and are about the same age, rather than Barnacle Boy being significantly younger than Mermaid Man. Not only that, the Dirty Bubble and Man Ray have known each other and the heroes since they were babies, to! In fact, they were all BORN with super powers, and (with two brand new characters to accompany both the heroes and the villains, who I hope we get to see more of), they attend a Super Daycare! However, Spongebob and Patrick seem less interested in caring for the babies' needs, and more about seeing them show off their super power abilities! Than, they decide to tell them a comic book story about ALL of them that comes from the FUTURE! It seems like we've FINALLY got brand new voices for Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy (I wonder who they are), but I'm not sure if I will EVER get used to the Dirty Bubble and Man Ray NOT being voiced by Charles Nelson Reilly and John Rhys-Davies respectively! Anyways, after telling them about their eventual futures, they decide to act out the story they just told them, with Patrick leading the bad babies, and Spongebob leading the good babies. It...goes about as well as you'd expect, with babies who don't know their own strength and haven't gotten control over all their powers yet. Needless to say, when the ACTUAL Day Care Man gets back from his break, he is ANGRY at Patrick and Spongebob for ruining ALL his work for trying to teach them to get along together! As it turns out, when Spongebob and Patrick get back to their own time, it's revealed that the reason Spongebob and Patrick TAUGHT the super babies to fight each other, is because THAT'S what the comic books said HAPPENED to them, so they were invoking a "Stable Time Loop"! However the concept is immediately deconstructed, when both the now grown up superheroes and supervillains appear, and criticize them for teaching them to hate each other!

It's only than that Spongebob realizes that both he and Patrick messed up by doing what they did, and they have to run away for their very lives! I guess I'd give this episode a good 8.8 out of 10. Enough said, true believers!