S04E06: Dunces and Dragons

“Wow, the boys back home will never believe this!” “I’m right here and I don’t believe it!”

Original Airdate: February 20, 2006

Only a mere three months after the show’s last double-length episode, SpongeBob deemed it necessary to take another crack at telling a more comprehensive story. Loyal readers may remember that, for the relatively secure place “Have You Seen My Snail?” has within the online community, it’s not an episode I’m particularly high on; I found its melodrama to be too maudlin, and yet too uncommitted to its own emotionality, leading to an episode that wants to emotionally bait you without ever really believing in its own narrative. “Dunces and Dragons” feels more crafted for its runtime in a way that should play to the show’s strengths: its idea feels suitable for the longer treatment, being a proper adventure with an actual narrative, but instead of trying to create an emotionally compelling story, its sole aim is to be a comedic story. And that’s very attainable! Sadly, while I don’t think this is a particularly disastrous or conflicted episode, it’s not a very strong one either; while the fresh layer of paint lends it some fleeting intrigue, it’s yet another by-the-number entry into a by-the-numbers season.

The set-up is fascinatingly arbitrary: at a Medieval Times-esque event in Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob and Patrick elect themselves as audience participants in a joust that goes awry when their steeds launch them through the wall, and into the 11th century. I can suspend my disbelief for the sake of setting up the plot, I suppose, but I also see no reason why it wouldn’t simply work better to interpret the conceit through a “universal-adaptor cast” lens; think “Ugh,” but… perhaps more successful. So much of the interesting aspects of the episode are in how our cast of series regulars are interpolated into medieval roles, so why not just extend that to SpongeBob and Patrick as well, and create a more contained narrative? It feels a bit non-committal on the show’s part, though I guess SpongeBob and Patrick being themselves, having been randomly transported to an alternate universe, has easier hooks for writing, if not logic. Nonetheless, the two find themselves at the heart of a prophecy: two brave knights shall fall from the sky, and be sent by the king to rid the town of the evil Planktonamor—more on that in just a second—and his dragon’s wrath.

What works the most in the episode’s favor is the fun game of seeing how our cast of characters have been recontextualized into this new world, even if most of their roles feel fairly predictable. Mr. Krabs and Pearl have become king and princess, and Plankton has become the aforementioned wizard Planktonamor, who commands a dragon (jellyfish) to wreak havoc on Krabs’ village and kidnaps Pearl for collateral. Sandy becomes the "Dark Knight,” a fierce warrior allegiant to Plankton, in one of the episode’s more unique casting decisions. But the unequivocal highlight of “Dunces and Dragons” is the Squidward’s reinterpretation as Squiddly, Krabs’ puckish court jester who’s found himself in hot water for his harsh critiques of the royal highness. It’s exactly the sort of bonkers casting that this episode should be all about. While it finds Squidward acting dramatically against type, give or take a few moments of deadpan, it also holds true to a lot of Squidward’s greatest qualities as a character—his self-important view of himself, his artsiness, and his willingness to talk back. Perhaps it’s no surprise, given how much more well-conceived he is than the rest of the characters in the episode, that the original plot was reportedly more directly centered on his character. Of what few details we have of it, some names pitched for it at that stage of development include “The World’s Worst Minstrel” and “Squidward’s Ancestors.” I have to wonder how much better that could’ve worked; knowing that makes Spongebob and Patrick’s insertion into the narrative feel even more slapdash, as if the show was worried it hadn’t earned our trust enough to sink into something more specific or disconnected. (Which, again, we did have “Ugh,” so who knows.)

Beyond the character uses, though, the narrative is pretty straightforward; if anything, it simply passes SpongeBob and Patrick from one character to the next, as their party grows larger and larger with each encounter and recruitment. The most interesting wrinkles in the episode are the ones that suggest that the actions of characters in the past have had some effect on their future; Squiddly is so aggrieved by his clarinet, for instance, that he curses his future ancestors to be similarly trash at playing it, while SpongeBob introducing karate in his fight against the Dark Knight lays the inkling for present-day Sandy’s love of karate herself. Sadly, those moments are very small and strewn about as cute little winks to the audience than anything else; the conceit is largely just a pedestrian medieval story with SpongeBob characters inserted in it. That ends up being the greatest issue with “Dunces and Dragons” to me: for its length and scope, it simply isn’t that funny, nor does it find a lot of interesting turns in its progression. The playful spirit of the show is present, but it doesn’t interrogate its tropes or give them any novel spins. It just feels… predictable. Predictably cute, but predictable all the same. And that’s kind of the worst way for something to feel, when that thing is deliberately trying to do something different and unique.

I can appreciate “Dunces and Dragons” as a flashy little bit of spectacle, and if nothing else, its existence is memorable—I just can’t say it goes above and beyond that superficial memorability. I have to wonder if its good ideas got suppressed as the episode gradually became more streamlined, but ultimately, it’s another representation the sort of growing pains that Season 4’s been having which have made all of its calculated risks feel so troublingly risk-averse. Squiddly, my boy, you certainly deserved better.

Favorite joke: Spongebob and co. growing ridiculously exhausted as they ascend the endless staircase up Planktonamor’s tower is a little joke that’s always stuck with me, and the sort of tropey thing that I wish “Dunces and Dragons” spent more time playing around with.

Stray Observations:
— RIP Ye Olde Bowling Alley.
— Something that has always irked me about this episode is that, for how much it commits to casting all of its key players as a pre-existing character, the blacksmith is just… himself? A completely new guy? How come that couldn’t have been Larry the Lobster? I feel like it’d be a fun interpolation, however minor.
— While there’s not a ton of great dialogue in the episode, I’ll be honest and say that the very dumb game of ending random words with “-eth” did get me more times than I’d like to admit; I particularly enjoyed Squidly’s “Ow-eth.” when SpongeBob karate chops him in half, and Pearl’s pained “I be-ith okay…” after falling through the floor of Planktonamor’s castle. Weirdly, it seems like the episode suddenly commits SUPER hard to that joke in its final act, but hey, if it works, it works.
— Oh, and if I’m also allowed one more nitpick: what’s the deal with the Dark Knight being Sandy’s ancestor, if Sandy only moves to Bikini Bottom in the first season of the show? Also, how is the Dark Knight able to breathe underwater? Yes, I know all of this could be overlooked by the idea that everything that happened in “Dunces and Dragons” was a result of SpongeBob and Patrick suffering a concussion during their joust at the start of the episode, but the only thing I despise more than revisionist canon are “it was a dream all along” endings. So I’m picking this poison!
—Shout-out to the cry squad: we’re now at a cool 7/10 episodes of SpongeBob crying. Will he cease? We’ll just have to see!

FINAL GRADE: B-.

Season Episode Ranking:
     1. Skill Crane (A-)

     2. Selling Out (B)
     3. Krabs vs. Plankton (B)
     4. The Lost Mattress (B-)
     5. Fear of a Krabby Patty (B-)
     6. Dunces and Dragons (B-)
     7. Have You Seen This Snail? (C+)
     8. Shell of a Man (C+)

     9. Funny Pants (C)
    10. Good Neighbors (C-)

Next week: Plankton falls in love, and SpongeBob makes a movie.

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