SpongeBob is rarely a show that has much of a message to it, but I’ve always been fascinated by its occasional episodes that were penned with more pointed intent. Such is the case with “Selling Out,” which may not have much of a reputation among fans as either a funny or notable episode, but it strikes me as an interesting artistic statement. It’s widely-known that Hillenburg did not see much point in continuing the show beyond its three seasons and a movie, while acknowledging that, as Nickelodeon’s cash cow, its continuation was inevitable. While it was never as much a matter of bad blood as certain people online might make you think for the sake of telling some sort of damning narrative, I have to wonder if that sentiment, between the public and the privacy of the show’s creative team, was swirling around, and that the show, internally, felt some desire to address it. I see “Selling Out” as coded in such a way: with SpongeBob at a bit of an uncertain crossroads, this is the show saying that it will remain true to itself and everything that it’s always been about—a product of integrity, and not just an unkillable cash-grab.
“Selling Out” revolves around Krabs relinquishing the Krusty Krab to a wealthy business magnet—named, very on-the-nosely, Howard Blandy—who transforms the establishment into a franchise restaurant, Krabby O’Mondays, whose friendly atmosphere belies its abject soullessness. There’s pennants and kitsch from wall-to-wall; they pride themselves on “service with a smile,” and a refusal to cooperate leads to a pummeling from H.R.; and in lieu of a grill, Krabby Patties are now synthetic, molded from a disturbing gray goo without even a smidge of human (sponge?) touch. Squidward and SpongeBob are powerless cogs in the machine, which places Mr. Krabs in an interesting position when, fatigued by his tedious life of retirement, he decides to get a job there as a busboy.
Beyond the episode’s curious potential messaging, something I enjoy about “Selling Out” is how much it’s focused on Mr. Krabs; it’s rare to see the show placing anyone besides SpongeBob or occasionally Squidward at the forefront of its narratives, and even now it remains something of a novelty. While he has a lot of the same traits that we know him to be defined by—his love of money is placed front and center, with an entire musical number to boot—there’s something humanizing about how the episode portrays his sense of purpose and his listlessness when he’s been deprived of it, even when guaranteed enough money to last multiple lifetimes. Mr. Krabs loves money, but more than that he loves being Mr. Krabs, the cantankerous, penny-pinching owner of a successful business that he sincerely cares about. And that makes him a wonderful, surprising underdog within the episode’s plot, too: he has the leverage to overturn the machine, and he does it fearlessly.
Thematically, “Selling Out” does share fairly similar themes to the classic “Neptune’s Spatula” episode from Season 1, and while that episode is certainly better than this one as both a statement and a work of comedy, “Selling Out” offers some interesting new layers on that same base idea. Whereas Neptune, in the latter, could create millions of patties that, in spite of their flashiness, don’t satisfy a single person, the patties at Krabby O’Mondays are palatable, if in a damning way: as the new manager Carl puts it rather disingenuously, “Our customers are quite content with the contrived, and the mediocre.” It feels like the show making a self-aware statement that it knows how it could be perceived: it has been given a theoretically endless run indebted to its success as a piece of intellectual property, and that if it “jumps the shark,” it does not matter: SpongeBob is an icon, and it prints money. And while this is true, and lends itself to easy cynicism, that does not mean that everyone creatively involved with the show has suddenly stopped caring, or lost their spirit. The show might be a little listless, like Mr. Krabs, but invariably, it cares. SpongeBob wants to be anything but mediocre. And will it be mediocre from time to time? Yes. But there is something sort of sweet in knowing that it earnestly never wants to be that way. “Selling Out” might not be the funniest episode of all time, but to me, it’s a pretty fucking striking one.
“I think I found the one thing I hate more than his laugh…”
Ironically, the episode it’s paired with, “Funny Pants,” just so happens to be deeply mediocre, but hey—there’s a lot of episodes to make, and they can’t all be winners. As we saw and discussed with “Good Neighbors” just last week, one of the show’s greatest stumbling blocks as it goes forward is how to use Squidward, which is a shame, given that in his prime, he was one of the show’s most reliable characters. He adds a necessary vinegar to counteract SpongeBob’s sickly sweetness, and while he’ll almost always be an obstacle that exists to overcome, there is a natural balance he lends to the show tonally that has enabled the success of countless, brilliant episodes. By Season 4, though, we’ve found ourselves at the roots of a problem that will ingrain itself deeply in the show’s troubling use of him over the next few years: there’s a real empathy deficit.
The plot of the episode is pretty simple: Squidward is incredibly annoyed at SpongeBob’s incessant laughing, so he decides that the best way to get SpongeBob to stop is to convince him that he might “burn out his laugh box” if he isn’t able to control it. The subsequent hysteria causes SpongeBob to flee from society and hide out until sunrise for the sake of his health, but when he wakes up the next morning and discovers his laugh is gone, he has an emotional breakdown. So he cries. He cries a lot. And that’s even more annoying to Squidward.
I think it’s interesting to compare “Funny Pants” and its failings relative to two episodes that it shares a fair amount in common with, both from Season 1: “Squeaky Boots” and “Fools in April.” Like “Squeaky Boots,” “Funny Pants” plays a very difficult game in being deliberately annoying to prove its point in not only having SpongeBob laugh constantly throughout its first half, but also overlaying an incredibly grating squeaky sound over it. It’s a strange choice, because it doesn’t add anything but irritation. Most damningly, though, it makes us side with Squidward, because we’re similarly frustrated about having to constantly hear it—which is odd, considering that the episode frames itself in such a way that it wants us to find SpongeBob the most sympathetic. The success of “Squeaky Boots” isn’t in how tortured its sound design is; it works because it places us in Krabs’ shoes, as victims punishing noises, without having us jump back and forth between who we’re supposed to be sympathetic towards in such a contradictory way.
“Fools in April” succeeds by a lot of the same merits as “Squeaky Boots”—in intelligently weighing the perspectives and actions of its characters—though it’s startling to see how it manages to work better than “Funny Pants” while being even more caustic. I don’t think it’s too controversial to say that telling SpongBob he might burn out his laugh box is on a completely different level to graphically smacking him around every hard surface at the Krusty Krab in a gratuitously unjust public humiliation ritual. But again, what makes that episode work (if it works for you, at least), is that it’s intent on examining the psychology of its characters and the actual weight of their actions. In other words, it’s an episode that works itself into a corner, and then meaningfully works its way out, by having Squidward be remorseful, and creating a crisis of faith within him: he feels bad, and he wants to apologize, but he can’t will himself to. There is a moment where “Funny Pants” mirrors it, somewhat; after a night of SpongeBob’s non-stop crying, Squidward concedes that he made a terrible mistake and that he needs to rectify the situation by telling SpongeBob that he made everything up. But instead of digging into that feeling, Squidward reverts back to being an irritable dickhead, and there’s no meaningful sentiment to his confession beyond “whatever shuts this fucker up.” And of course, in classic post-movie years fashion, Squidward gets a cruel bit of comeuppance that isn’t really needed: he laughs himself into such a tizzy over his own joke that he breaks his own laugh box, and SpongeBob donates his own in as a replacement, cursing Squidward with the laugh that he hates the most. It attempts to be poetic, but just feels aimlessly mean.
And I think that speaks to the concerning patterns forming in the show as it goes on. In place of nuance, every feeling the characters have is played up in such a maximalist way that it seems to suggest these behaviors are just… innate to who they are. But especially in Season 4, when the show hasn’t quite retooled the characters in a way that perhaps grants them more flexibility to be broad and chaotic, it simply rings untrue. I’m open to these characters being reinterpreted—and as we get into the next two seasons, there are times where that works for me, which may be controversial—but right here, and right now? It’s all too much.
Favorite jokes:
From “Selling Out”: H.R. being portrayed as
a muscular goon who’s ready to beat up Squidward for failing to show the
Krabby O’Mondays spirit—literally sliding in and out of frame—might be another
instance of the show bearing a marginally retrograde view (see: therapy), but
it’s pretty funny stuff regardless.
From “Funny Pants”: The visual
of SpongeBob laughing in an iron lung is so specific and dark that it’s always
stuck with me. I can’t even tell if it’s funny anymore, but it possesses such
a verve.
Stray Observations:
— You’d be quickly forgiven if you forgot that
“Selling Out” features a whole opening musical number from Mr. Krabs about his
love of money and sense of greed. It’s… alright. It’s not one that’ll ever get
stuck in your head, nor would you ever find yourself bumping it in your free
time; it feels more like one of those numbers that’s designed to reinforce his
character, as if we didn’t already know how Mr. Krabs works. It’s fitfully
cute time filler, so whatever!
— Also, it’s very weird to see an animated
bird in Krabs’ song considering that this show already has an in-universe
analogue for birds (clams!), but this show has some interesting moments of
flexibility involving how clams should be interpreted… I look forward to
talking about the episode where SpongeBob, out of nowhere, goes on a
horrifying mid-song clam murder spree.
— Even if C.H. Greenblatt’s
involvement with the show ended with the season premiere, it is funny to see
him pop up here as the voice of Carl, and he does a great job at selling the
sinister smileyness of the guy.
— “Selling Out” also marks the first
appearance of Pearl this season, soon to be graced with her own episode. It’ll
be interesting to talk about her, and the show’s very spotty female cast, but
I really enjoyed her little cameo here, deflecting Krabs’ pathetic pleas to
spend time together; there was a very lived-in uncomfortability to it, and
even if it’s very comedic and broad, it struck me as weirdly sweet. Feels like
we rarely see what Krabs and Pearls’ dynamic as father and daughter looks like
on a day-to-day basis.
— There’s not a ton else I can say about “Funny
Pants,” but in line with its difficulty committing to a specific angle of its
story, it does fill out its second act by focusing on SpongeBob struggling
through a day without laughing while being bombarded by ridiculously silly
things. It’s not great, but it’s one of the more functional aspects of the
episode, even though it feels like it’s been jammed in from an alternate take
on the story. For all of its cartoonish imagery—a whoopee cushion and pie
truck pile-up, oh dear!—the funniest scene is just Patrick slipping on a
banana peel repeatedly.
— Oh, and after a week of dry eyes, SpongeBob is
back on his bullshit; while he only briefly tears up in “Selling Out,” the
waterworks get a good workout in “Funny Pants.” We’re now up to 6/9.
FINAL GRADES: B/C.
1. Skill Crane (A-)
3. Krabs vs. Plankton (B)
4. The Lost Mattress (B-)
5. Fear of a Krabby Patty (B-)
6. Have You Seen This Snail? (C+)
7. Shell of a Man (C+)
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