Top 20 Worst SpongeBob SquarePants Episodes
#20: “Atlantis SquarePantis”
Look, we can enjoy “Atlantis SquarePantis” in concept. It was interesting to see how the mythical underwater city fits into the show’s lore. Unfortunately, it pales in comparison to any of the episodes that came before it. Just about every song is forgettable with the exception of “Goodbye, Atlantis,” and the “Willy Wonka”-esque storyline feels hastily cobbled together with absolutely no payoff in the end. Yes, it's not as awful as the other nineteen episodes we have yet to reveal, but after specials like “SpongeBob’s House Party” or “The Lost Episode,” this should have been better.
#19: “SpongeBob, You’re Fired”
Top 10 Worst SpongeBob SquarePants Episodes
“What would happen if SpongeBob was fired?” Who cares? Did this really need to be explored!? “SpongeBob, You’re Fired” quickly proves how ridiculous it is the second Mr. Krabs explains he fired his best fry cook just to save a nickel. What follows is twenty minutes of our porous pal living the most miserable days of his life. Not only are we subjected to mundane gags, we also get to witness what happens when The Krusty Krab doesn’t have SpongeBob around for the hundredth time. Didn’t we already see about a dozen other episodes do something similar? Really, what was the point of the predictable plot?
#18: “Waiting”
Waiting for “Waiting” to have a payoff is an exercise in futility; it just wasn’t in the cards. “Waiting” sees SpongeBob cash in on a cereal box prize only to spend an exorbitant amount of time standing by his mailbox. It is quite literally an episode where nothing happens outside of watching him be mean to his friends and even miss his own birthday. Overall, we just fail to believe that this is something SpongeBob would actually do. Yes, waiting for a cereal box prize is stupid, but this is something Patrick would do. Past episodes have shown The Amazing Mister Absorbency has more brains than what we saw here.
#17: “To Love a Patty”
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What…what even was this? In “To Love a Patty,” SpongeBob cooks up a Krabby Patty so beautiful, so stunning, so perfect that he winds up starting a RELATIONSHIP with it. Yes, the powers that be thought, “Wow! Let’s do this! Let’s have SpongeBob fall in love with food, sing an awful love song to food, and show the food getting soggy, moldy, and gross throughout the episode! Because it isn’t enough for him to simply enjoy cooking food!” Needless to say, if there was ever a moment SpongeBob truly jumped the shark, it was this episode.
#16: “Squid’s Visit”
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In “Squid’s Visit,” SpongeBob sets out to make his home look just like Squidward’s place just to convince him to visit. Now, SpongeBob has been many things; naive, goofy, innocent, silly, a bit weird in some cases. But borderline psychotic? For some reason, that is the only character trait he exhibits here. The episode as a whole is a creepy bore from start to finish. None of the gags are funny, and most of it is spent painting SpongeBob as a total creep. Even worse is that nothing is truly resolved at the end. Squidward’s house burns down, and he winds up staying at SpongeBob’s until his home is rebuilt.
#15: “Truth Or Square”
How fun would it be to spend a whole TV special exploring “what if” moments? Not very. “Truth Or Square” was a monumental waste of time and an awful way to celebrate the show’s tenth anniversary. While the Patchy segments with celebrity cameos were entertaining, watching SpongeBob and friends reminisce and fantasize while being stuck in the Krusty Krab’s air vents was not. Did we really need to see SpongeBob eating his first Krabby Patty? What about the day he moved to Bikini Bottom? Or the day he and Sandy got married? It all felt like unnecessary throwaway gags based on episodes that were never made.
#14: “Rodeo Daze”
If there was ever an episode that served as a perfect example of “budget production,” it was “Rodeo Daze.” When Sandy goes to a rodeo, SpongeBob, Patrick and the rest of Bikini Bottom perceive it as a dangerous act and head to Texas to rescue her. For the rest of the episode, we get cheap animation one would expect from a show like “South Park.” The difference between the two is that “South Park” plays it up for laughs. For “SpongeBob,” the joke wears thin after a couple of seconds. We would have been fine if the whole episode was just dedicated to Sandy and had real animation behind it rather than just PNGs.
#13: “Choir Boys”
In “Choir Boys,” SpongeBob annoys Squidward while the cephalopod is on his way to the Bikini Bottom Men’s Choir performance. Not only does he annoy his neighbor, SpongeBob manages to annoy even the viewers. There is so much awful singing in this episode, which we would expect from Squidward. SpongeBob, though? Come on. Overall, “Choir Boys” isn’t the most memorable episode as most of the gags eat up so much time that they leave no room for any interesting plot development. If you want a musical episode, just go watch “Band Geeks.”
#12: “Someone’s in the Kitchen With Sandy”
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Among the few instances where Plankton and Sandy have interacted with each other, this was the most disturbing and disgusting of the bunch. This episode shows Plankton turn Sandy’s “fur suit” into a walking, talking husk as a part of his plot to steal an elusive Secret Formula. Sheldon J. Plankton has committed a plethora of awful crimes, but stealing the skin-fur of another animal? It’s one of the most heinous and disturbing things we’ve seen in the show. Plus, Plankton is supposed to be a genius. There was certainly a more imaginative and less haunting plan he could have gone with.
#11: “Demolition Doofus”
Mrs. Puff has long been known to have a strong resentment towards SpongeBob. But is it so strong as to want to actually kill him? Apparently so, and it’s why “Demolition Doofus” is among the most notorious episodes. After suffering from an accident (caused by another one of SpongeBob’s failed driving tests), Mrs. Puff tricks him into entering into a demolition derby, enticed by the thought of his possible death. Couple this mischaracterization of Mrs. Puff with a meandering story and unfunny gags, and “Demolition Derby” quickly shows why it’s another stain on the show’s once spotless reputation.
#10: “Boating Buddies”
Watching Squidward take L after L can be entertaining, but when that’s all the episode is, it can get stale. We’ll admit that “Boating Buddies” has a few decent laughs, but for the most part, it's…bizarre. From SpongeBob’s chalkboard message to the driving test that invades a shrink ray experiment, many moments feel super out of place. Don’t get us wrong - we enjoy the occasional absurdity “SpongeBob” dives into, but there still has to be some level of setup, some ounce of logic that makes sense within the world. At least Mrs. Puff was much more level headed here.
#9: “Pet Sitter Pat”
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Past episodes have shown that Patrick does hold some affection for his best friend’s pet. Well, for some reason, episodes like “Dumped” have been completely forgotten so that “Pet Sitter Pat” may live. Here, we see what Patrick is like as a pet sitter, and he becomes the meanest and coldest character of the show. He disregards SpongeBob’s schedule for Gary, goes hours without feeding or walking Gary, eats Gary’s food in front of him, pours his food into the kitchen sink, and even destroys SpongeBob’s house. We know Patrick is dumb, but to consistently put Gary in danger and ignore SpongeBob’s schedule makes him an absolute menace.
#8: “Big Sister Sam”
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Before his negligence towards Gary, Patrick treated his own neighbors poorly when his sister visited in this episode. For the entire eleven minutes, Patrick and Sam get into a fight with Squidward as they deliberately destroy his house to make a brand new rock. This only antagonizes Squidward more as he tries to exact revenge. What’s worse is that Patrick actively defends his sister even when she’s clearly hurting people. And what do we get for enduring such a horrible episode that brought out the worst in its main cast? A lovely close-up of Sam’s two fingernails. How pleasant.
#7: “Ink Lemonade”
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Many of the episodes from Seasons Eleven and Twelve are pretty top-notch, but “Ink Lemonade” probably steered more fans away just as they were returning. When Patrick finds success selling Squidward’s ink as “lemonade,” he does everything he can to scare Squidward into sneezing fits. For almost the whole episode, viewers are subjected to mean-spirited behavior and some of the most grotesque imagery the show has ever seen. It certainly doesn’t help that the animation is obnoxiously exaggerated in almost every frame like a hyperactive YouTube cartoon. How was this greenlit during the writing process?
#6: “Face Freeze”
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Okay, so what do you get when you mix in the myth of “getting your face frozen” with the body horror of “I Was a Teenage Gary” and the insubordinate attitudes in “Hooky?” You get “Face Freeze.” After making a series of disturbing and disfigured faces, SpongeBob and Patrick find their faces stuck to their ridiculous forms. It's not even the faces that are a problem in this episode, but the imagery around it. From SpongeBob’s drool to the overly detailed close-ups, “Face Freeze” is far from what we wanted from the show. Was this made by the team at Nickelodeon or some trollfic writers?
#5: “Stuck in the Wringer”
If you ever wanted to know what it’s like to actually despise SpongeBob, this episode will let you find out. Our bubbly buddy has found himself in an unfortunate predicament where he cannot get out of his wringer. Patrick tries to help his friend feel better, but it only results in public humiliation for the dimwitted starfish. SpongeBob’s nasty behavior aside, “Stuck in the Wringer” also feels like an excuse to show audiences that two best friends can get into heated arguments. Problem is that this was not the story nor the tone to convey that particular life lesson, especially when the conclusion is so rushed and lacks any nuance.
#4: “House Fancy”
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The idea of Squidward indulging in interior decorating makes sense for his character. It’s what makes “House Fancy” interesting…initially. It's after the call to his favorite TV show where it all takes a nosedive. Hamfisting SpongeBob into the plot is nowhere near as offensive as the scene where Squidward has to move the couch. Yeah, the image of Squiddy getting his toenail mangled and ripped off was grueling to watch. We have seen grotesque body horror in previous episodes, but this moment felt incredibly forced, like the show was trying to capitalize on shock value. By the end of it, we felt the same as Squidward’s toilet.
#3: “The Splinter”
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This was about as pleasant to endure as a real splinter. When a workplace accident occurs and SpongeBob gets a splinter, he does everything he can to get rid of it before potentially being sent home. At first, the sight of it is nothing to get squeamish about, but it quickly escalates after SpongeBob visits the brilliant Doctor Patrick. Splinters are already disgusting to look at. Did we really have to look at one that is foaming up and eventually bursts all over Mr. Krabs? The answer is a resounding “absolutely not,” and “The Splinter” became widely regarded as the start of the show’s low point.
#2: “A Pal for Gary”
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Did someone at Nickelodeon harbor a deep hatred for Gary? Because “A Pal for Gary” was torture for us. In this poor excuse of an episode, SpongeBob adopts another pet thinking it might keep Gary company while he’s off doing other things. What follows is a series of events where Gary is being threatened by the new pet before SpongeBob comes in completely oblivious to his best friend staring into the face of death. We have to wonder who thought kids would want to watch something like this, and it’s one of the two reasons why Season Seven gets so much vitriol. The other reason? Well, it’s our final entry…
#1: “One Coarse Meal”
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This is, by far, the worst “SpongeBob” episode to ever exist, and it is hard to argue that any other episode reaches such an abysmally low level of quality as this. “One Coarse Meal” is widely hated by SpongeBob fans young and old, and rightfully so. First off, you have Mr. Krabs gleefully tormenting Plankton by exploiting his fear of whales with no remorse whatsoever. Then, you have the depressing and heartbreaking moment where Plankton waits for a bus to crush him so he can stop living in paranoia. It is all tasteless and totally dismissive of some of the heavy subject matter it briefly touches upon. Good luck finding a soul who found “One Coarse Meal” to be remotely tolerable.
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