Toast Krusters

[Old Man Jenkins]

Plot: Inspired by watching an all day marathon of tv’s “Ghost Exploits”, Mr. Krabs decides to cash in on this ghost hunting craze by opening up Bikini Bottom’s very own ghost hunting business in hopes of being picked up for a network deal.

Pilot: Part 1

Mr. Krabs reels SpongeBob and Squidward into his latest business venture with promises of fame and a fair, balanced fraction of fortune. Squidward’s interest is intrigued by the mere prospect of boosting his public profile (though he finds travel channel supernatural shows as lowbrow catering to the lowest common denominator), but SpongeBob is genuinely in it for actually helping people with their polter-problems. SpongeBob pours his heart and soul into the branding and aesthetic of the team, leading to the birth of the “Toast Krusters” after SpongeBob failed to correct a Patrick typo in a timely fashion. Fortunately, Patrick is unable to join them on their ghost adventures as he’s already contractually obligated to produce The Patrick Star Show, but he promises to use his network connections to try and work them out a deal if they’re able to produce a compelling pilot to present to executives in the meantime.

After some initial confusion involving the Krusty Krab breakfast menu, The Toast Krusters were finally off to the races. With Squidward serving as their self appointed obligatory psychic medium, their first couple of cases turn in excellent results. With Squidward pinpointing the specific haunts with precision and Mr. Krabs providing the anti-ghost tools necessary to properly deal with any hostile threats, the Toast Krusters manage to make toast out of 5 whole ghosts. Now, all Krabs has to do is to pick the best case to make a pilot out of.

While in the editing room, SpongeBob catches a glimpse of a compelling piece of evidence: the manifestation of a hand on camera. SpongeBob excitedly leaves the discomfort of his bathroom stall editing station to show Mr. Krabs the fruit of their labors. Krabs hardly seems interested as he tells SpongeBob to take out the trash instead. However, SpongeBob fumbles with the bag in his excitement to get back to editing, causing the bag to burst open when it hits the ground. SpongeBob hastily kneels down to pick up its scattered contents, but stops in his tracks at a very peculiar sight. Empty sprays littered about, there must’ve been about 50 of them. He picks up a couple to examine them more closely and gasps when he sees the word “INVISIBLE” plastered not just on them, but on all the other spray cans.

SpongeBob re-enters Mr. Krabs’ office to confront him about his discovery, but his boss denies their use. Krabs doubles down that all their cases were authentic when a couple of tough, mean-looking fish barge into his office with a couple of dry cleaning bills. They want Krabs to reimburse them for their stained up clothes after using that spray he “made them put on themselves”. This serves to confirm SpongeBob’s suspicions, breaking the little lad’s heart because he thought they were actually out there helping people. Instead, they just took their money and left them with false peace of mind.

Krabs’ pleas and excuses fall on deaf ears as SpongeBob storms out in order to flush all their work so far down the toilet. SpongeBob is about to leave when Krabs reminds him that his shift isn’t over yet. SpongeBob resolves to finish out his shift and THEN leave in a huff.

Later that evening, Squidward is spending what’s left of his day off unwinding in his bathtub. He checks the temperature before stepping in. His efforts to relax are interrupted by the water getting progressively warmer. He looks down to see the water slowly turning yellow. Squidward blushes but asserts that it “wasn’t me”. The water starts to bubble before going full boil. Squidward tries escaping the heat but he’s suddenly pulled down below. Squidward grapples with his assailant under the bath water. He can feel hands squeezing tighter around his neck, but he can’t quite see anything in the water in front of him.

SpongeBob, having just finished his shift, is heading straight to Squidward’s in that huff he was in in order to inform him of Krabs’ underhanded tactics, but he doesn’t get an answer. However, he could hear some sort of commotion going on upstairs from where he’s standing. He looks up at one of the house’s eye windows to see a strange yellow glow emanating from it. Squidward is then seen putting his head up, gasping for air in front of it before a pair of hands pulls him back down in clear view. SpongeBob gasps, proceeds to break down the door and sprints inside. Squidward continues drowning in the tub where he slowly loses consciousness. He’s able to discern a pair of yellow arms grabbing him when he’s suddenly pulled up and out of the bath water. SpongeBob carefully places him on the floor and checks to see if he’s still breathing. SpongeBob starts the process of resuscitation. He keeps at it until an unseen force flings him into Squidward’s bathroom mirror. SpongeBob collapses to the floor but catches a glimpse of a figure standing in the steamy bathroom behind him through a broken piece of the mirror. The steam turns yellow and lunges at him, pulling the sponge up into the air before throwing him clear into Squidward’s gallery. Various pieces of what Squidward considers to be art start to levitate around the room, almost circling around SpongeBob. SpongeBob gets pelted by self portraits and avant garde, forcing him onto the ground when a statue made in Squidward’s likeness is seen floating over SpongeBob’s head. Squidward comes in with the Spectre Deflector that Krabs gave them and repels whatever it is before the weight of the statue could be sent crashing down. However, the entity instead throws the statue Squidward’s way in order to escape the paddle ball. The lighting of the house returns to normal and the steam recedes as SpongeBob crawls over to assist Squidward.

Elsewhere that night, Mr. Krabs is working on another “case” “solo” at a reportedly haunted house. Krabs’ hired ghouls finish spraying themselves down and get into position for Krabs to film their paranormal activity. But when they miss their cue, Krabs starts to lose his cool as nothing happens for the camera. Krabs suddenly feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up in spite of the fact that he already has them taped down. He hears loud footsteps coming from the second floor of the house, where it seems to come to a halt right at the top of the stairs. Krabs grabs his camera and aims it at the top of the stairs. However, silence once again takes hold of the house. Krabs angrily sets the camera on a side table, growling under his breath at their incompetence, when a loud thud finally breaks through the silence. The sound then gets closer and closer down the stairs, but it wasn’t the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. It was as if something was rolling down them. Krabs could hear cracking sounds as whatever it was finally made its way to the bottom. Tearing sounded as a bone suddenly protruded out in midair. Faint gasps could be heard on the floor as blood pours from out of nowhere onto it.

Krabs looks back up and sees nothing. He can, however, hear the sound of a heart beating from up there. The beating progressively beats faster and faster, rapidly matching Krabs’ own heart rate at the moment. Krabs screams and scrambles, frantically seeking a place to escape to or hide in, but all doors on the first floor are locked shut, save for the one that leads down into the basement. Krabs stands atop the basement stairs, hesitant to seek any sort of salvation down there. Krabs freezes in gear as footsteps rapidly ascend the stairs he’s standing on.

“GET OUT OF MY WAY!”

Krabs recognizes that voice as one of his hired ghouls. But the hired hand’s cries are interrupted when a fully visible hand pops out of mid air in front of Krabs, holding a still beating, disembodied heart. All Krabs could make out below the heart was a red, fleshy hand connected to a red, pulsating arm. The heart is squeezed in the palm of this mystery hand, causing it to burst blood all over Krabs’ face. The arm retreats back into the darkness of the basement as the hired ghoul’s body can be heard tumbling all the way down to the basement floor.

Krabs runs back out to the parlor and grabs the side table his camera was resting on before chucking it through a nearby window. Krabs hastily throws himself out onto the broken grass and stumbles over to his truck where all their ghost hunting and camera equipment are stationed. Krabs checks the camera feed and sees that someone is currently carrying the camera throughout the house, filming every step of the way. The camera then stops at the now open front door, recording the truck that Krabs is in. The camera continues holding this shot for minutes on end. A part of Krabs wanted to peek out and take a look, but another part of him wanted to get the heck out of dodge right now. He summons the courage to walk towards the open hatch of the truck, but a loud bang startles him as the camera is flung against the open truck door to his left. Krabs recovers the camera, knowing how expensive it is, and takes a quick glance at the front door of the house.

The porch light turned on, revealing a mass of exposed, palpitating flesh in the shape of a person waving at him from the doorstep. Krabs retreats back into the truck and peels off in a panic as the power of the entire street seemingly cuts off all at once.

[Old Man Jenkins]

here’s to Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’s recent release

 

Pilot: Part 2

Following both their respective run-ins with the other side, the Toast Krusters reconvene and formulate a counter-offensive as they find themselves fighting sinister specters on two fronts. Knowing that they must liberate two homes to prevent them from becoming perpetual houses of horror, they enlist Sandy’s services in order to “get a few upgrades” for their anti-ghost equipment.

Using their newly modified gear, they are able to fight with the ghost haunting Squidward’s house on a much more even playing field. The struggle forces the ghost to manifest itself, revealing it to be a piece of SpongeBob’s own soul: the part of his soul that “died” when his vision for the Toast Krusters became a big sham thanks to Krabs. SpongeBob and Krabs reconcile just in time to save Squidward from another untimely demise, with SpongeBob employing his trusty reef blower to finally trap the ghost.

They next head to the residence where Krabs’ disastrous solo ghost hunt took place. They’re able to draw the ghost out by tracking its whereabouts through random drops of temperature. The ghost manifests itself in the kitchen, revealing itself to be the corresponding part for SpongeBob’s passion that got poured into this project: his heart.

They’re ultimately able to trap it after Krabs baits it in and surprises it out by having his shivering timbers braced. This enables Krabs to retain it long enough for SpongeBob to trap in his reef blower.

Once the dust settles, they take the reef blower back to Sandy’s Treedome, where she can properly contain and, hopefully, dispose of them. SpongeBob’s faith in the team is restored as he draws up concept art for the Krusters’ uniforms going forward.

 

Notes

• Featured ghosts: “Heart Man” and “Soul Man”

• Introduced gadgets: Reef Blower and Shivering Timber Braces

[Old Man Jenkins]

Episode 3: Angel in the Goo

The Toast Krusters are called upon to investigate Goo Lagoon, where a series of horrific drownings both in and out of the goo have been taking place. Local surf bums believe the cause of all the panic to be supernatural in nature. Some believe The Big One is back to wreak its brutal vengeance after it got shredded upon last surf season. The Toast Kusters rent out a dinghy for an overnight investigation out on water. Their cameras capture ghost orbs floating over the goo’s surface and onto land, but a freak wave accident cuts this investigation short.

The next night, the Krusters launch an investigation on the beach itself, where Squidward comes face-to-face with the source of the haunting after disturbing its resting place with his specter detector (fashioned out of an old metal detector): Scooter the Surfer! After saving Squidward from a near-drowning on dry land, the memories all come flooding back to SpongeBob. He informs the others that Scooter passed away very untimely when the surfer asked him and his old pal, Bubble Buddy, to bury him in the sand. SpongeBob then left Bubble Buddy in charge of digging Scooter back out, but he hadn’t heard from Scooter again since. Krabs deduces that the bubble somehow failed his task and that Scooter now haunts the beach, tethered to the physical world by his anger and lust for vengeance.

Squidward vividly recalls the ghost of Scooter having a pair of wings and a halo, as if he were visited by an angel. The surfer had no such appendages in life, so he must’ve acquired those sometime after death. They call it in to Sandy for her to further study on. Sandy doesn’t want to keep wasting valuable resources on their phony part time gig (especially without compensation), but a run in with Scooter the Angel himself inside her own Treedome is enough to convince Sandy to help put an end to his reign of terror. After ghost-proofing her dome, she gets back to The Krusters with more intel on “avenging angels”. Avenging angels were among the first angels created by God to dish out punishments that the big kahuna couldn’t bring himself to commit on his own. While mere mortals such as themselves are unable to become actual angels, she theorizes that Scooter’s well-documented religious upbringing mixed with his anger over his untimely death fueled a change in his spectral body after death, morphing him into the Angel of Vengeance they see now. And it seems as though he won’t rest until his vengeance has been deemed truly wreaked.

Taking some of the ectoplasmic ooze she recovered from their previous Heart & Soul investigations and mixing it into a compound sample of goo from the lagoon, she creates a countermeasure made specially for Scooter that she calls “The Gooze”. She sends a bottle out to The Toast Krusters by drone to use at their own discretion. Krabs suggests using the Gooze to set up a trap for Scooter, and SpongeBob just so happens to have the perfect trap in mind.

That night, the ghost of Scooter is drawn out by the presence of Bubble Buddy himself. His retribution finally at hand, Scooter uses his ghostly powers to finally pop the bubble, but unbeknownst to him, this perfect replica of Bubble Buddy was made by SpongeBob using the Gooze! Once popped, the Gooze splattered all over Scooter’s angelic form, burning him upon contact. Using his trusty bubble wand, SpongeBob blows Gooze bombs at Scooter, weakening him further. This leaves the angel of vengeance curable enough for Krabs and Squidward to lay siege with their new patented “Grief Blowers”. They handily suck up the ghost of Scooter the Surfer and send him back to Sandy for proper dispensement.

With their investigation of Goo Lagoon officially coming to a close, the beach returns to relative normalcy. SpongeBob paddles out into the lagoon with all the beach bums to give Scooter a more dignified send off, out of respect for their fallen angel.

 

Notes

• Featured ghost: Scooter the Angel

• Introduced anti-ghost devices: The Gooze and the newly patented Grief Blower