S04E07: Enemy In-Law / Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy VI: The Motion Picture

“Such beauty! She’s an angel, and no wires!” 

Original Airdates: October 14 / October 7, 2005

As I’ve mentioned every time he’s appeared so far this season—which has been shockingly often, it feels—I adore Plankton. He’s kind of a fool-proof character; even in very weak episodes of the show, it’s not hard for him to squeeze at least a few laughs from me. I think a lot of that is a testament to how much control Mr. Lawrence has over the guy, as both Plankton’s voice actor and a writer who can vouch for the character’s best interests and ensure that his plots and goings-on feel true to how he’s always been. With that being said, for as solid as he remains across the show’s run, his episodes aren’t always the most individually memorable. They can bleed together very easily; mad scientist doohickey this, tricking SpongeBob that. Where an episode like “Enemy In-Law” has value, then, is that it gives him an exciting new context to thrive in where he is undeniably himself, but navigating a story that feels more original and memorable—a story of unexpected love with, of all characters, Krabs’ mom.

That would be dumb if not for the fact that “Enemy In-Law,” wisely, plays it with a sense of shocking earnestness. Even if a scheme slowly gets wrapped into the plot—and indeed, proves to be Plankton’s downfall—Plankton’s primary motivation is a sincere attraction to Mama Krabs; he goes to such drastic measures to try and impress her, and he’s filled with butterflies at the prospect of ringing her up for a date. It would’ve been so much easier to depict the story as Plankton being manipulative in his seduction, but the fact that the apple of his eye is Mr. Krabs’ mom is basically a non-factor until everything comes crashing down. Throughout those conflicts of interest, too, the ways that all the characters are contorted with interesting new shades is good fun, especially as Krabs reduces himself to a blubbering mama’s boy who has to beg his strong-willed mother not to fall in love with such a bad, bad man. For a show that often struggles to have strong female characters, too (something that isn’t discussed all that much, but which always feels very noticeable to me), I appreciate how much Mama Krabs is the arbiter of decision-making throughout it all, deflecting her son’s selfish concerns while also denying Plankton’s infatuation when it gets to be too much and even giving him a pummel by the episode’s end when Plankton feebly attempts to get the formula from her as a consolation. 

As a minor note, I also like how SpongeBob is tertiary to the plot in the way that he is; if there’s something I’m discovering an appreciation for in this season which I had completely forgotten about, it’s how willing they are to decentralize him and allow other characters to get a closer examination. I think that also allows for more flexibility with how he’s portrayed; “Enemy In-Law” in particular benefits from how much it can play up his giddier traits on the sidelines without the risk of it ever becoming especially exhausting. (Him leaping up to announce his name when everyone is shouting at each other in a dramatic soap opera fashion, just for the sake of being involved, is a silly joke I’ve always enjoyed.) And likewise, while Krabs could be a viable protagonist for the story, the fact that it’s centered the way it is around Plankton plays to its benefit—how often do we get to see Plankton as a protagonist, or as a tragic figure who is destined for his lot in life, rather than simply being the enemy? If the episode isn’t a certified all-timer, the way it re-prioritizes and colors its cast in different shades makes things feel very fresh and novel in all the ways that Season 4, at its best, should be feeling.

“Did somebody say boom?”

One of my favorite themes in media is the joys of creation. There’s something enjoyably meta about it, letting the audience in on the fun that comes with being able to simply… make art. There are a few episodes where SpongeBob has toyed with the idea of art and its subjective meaning in the past—“The Paper” and “Artist Unknown,” for instance—but “Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy VI: The Motion Picture” predicates itself on something uniquely specific within that vein: the very DIY, low-tech flavor of doing something not because it’s easy or intuitive, but because it means something to you. 

First, though, let’s talk a little about Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy. They’ve always been kind of interesting to me in how, for as iconic as they are, they’re simultaneously the most comically predictable characters in the show’s cast: they are superheroes, and they are old. There is some novelty to the silly logic of their conception, since they’re retro cartoon superheroes who have aged gracelessly, but the reason they land is less in the way they’ve been written as it is in how expertly they were portrayed by Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway, two legends of the industry who lend the duo an inimitable, lived-in quality. A lot of SpongeBob’s success as a show is in the marriage of writerly conception and masterful performance, but in their case, I have to give credit to the actors for getting their characters over—if they were just portrayed by Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke doing silly old man voices, I don’t think they would hit anywhere near as well. To the show’s credit, though, the writers also frequently tailor the two into appropriately loopy premises. 

“The Motion Picture” is somewhat of an outlier, though, in how its concept plays with more contemporary tropes than retro ones: rather than goof around with old superhero cartoon gags, it lightly satirizes modern nerd culture with the idea that SpongeBob and Patrick, diehard MM&BB fans to the ends of the earth, are deeply offended by a major studio rebooting the franchise with actors. And instead of taking that atrocity sitting down, they decide that they’re gonna make their own movie, starring their favorite heroes as themselves.

What makes “The Motion Picture” work though, is how much everyone takes to the assignment, as SpongeBob and Patrick quickly rally all of their friends into the production, feeding into the magic of film in their own enthusiastic, if frequently misguided ways. Squidward, initially disinterested, is drawn in by the prospect of being a makeup artist, and commits horrific body horror to the movie’s two stars in the name of his artistic visions; Sandy handles stunts and explosives, which largely amounts to blowing up Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy at any possible moment. Like “Dunces and Dragons,” though, the desire to whip the entire ensemble together does yield a few half-assed inclusions that are simply carried by our appreciation of the characters involved. Such is the case with Pearl, for instance, who discovers her denigrating “starring role” is as the heroes’ boatmobile, or Plankton who, after failing to secure his dream role as Man Ray, is forced to serve as the movie’s boom mic operator. These are funny physical gags, especially the latter, but they don’t necessarily come across as the best possible uses of the characters for such a scenario.

Still, I can forgive the episode for being a bit formless and imbalanced; I think that spark of childlike glee to it all is so charming and resonant that its rough edges barely matter. And sure, the film set ends up destroyed, Patrick reveals he had the lens cap on their film camera the entire time, and SpongeBob has a viral crashout moment, but it’s the denouement, where we see SpongeBob’s final effort, that the journey reveals it was all worth it. Maybe the production that he envisioned isn’t there, as he carts toy boats around cardboard models of the city, and awkward cuts leave lines clipped and Sandy’s stunt doubling aggressively noticeable, but he’s created something that he’s proud of, regardless of what anyone else thinks. He has done justice to his favorite superheroes—the people he reveres the most—which no glossy Hollywood blockbuster could ever do. And that’s the beauty of art for art’s sake. 

Favorite jokes:
From “Enemy In-Law”: Mr. Krabs being so cheap that he steals a hat from an open casket funeral to give to his mother is, uh, insane. Sending Squidward back with a shovel to return it… dear lord.
From “Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy VI: The Motion Picture”: I’m an easy mark. Sandy blowing up Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy over and over again could’ve been done ten more times and I’d still laugh at it.

Stray Observations:
— “What?! You mean you kidnapped us just to sell us your fast food?!” “Come on! It’s a standard marketing technique!”
— “Enemy In-Law” gives us our first glimpse of Karen, Plankton’s WIFE (Wired Integrated Female Electroencephalograph), this season. I’ve always really enjoyed her and look forward to talking about the episodes where she’s more centered in episode narratives; here, she’s just a slight obstacle to Plankton’s sudden, adulterous love.
— I didn’t have the space to mention it in the review, but Plankton getting cucked by his own robot is a funny little side-detail at the end that didn’t even need to happen for the plot to work, but I’m amused nonetheless.
— Questions I never thought I’d ask: how would a crab wear a wedding ring?
— “Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy VI: The Motion Picture” has to be the longest episode title in the series, right? I actively hate having to type it out. Thankfully, all future episodes to feature the characters lose the naming convention.
— For a while, I was trying to see discernable similarities in episode pairings, but gave up pretty quickly because it seems, for the most part, highly arbitrary. What I can say, though, is that both episodes this week feature real-life video footage of crabs for a cutaway gag! Who woulda thought?
— This week, in SpongeBob’s emotional health: he made it through “Enemy In-Law” without crying, but sheds a few tears when his movie production falls apart. Valid, but that’s still crying! 8/12 so far.

FINAL GRADES: B/B+.

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

     2. Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy VI: The Motion Picture (B+)

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

    11. Funny Pants (C)
    12. Good Neighbors (C-)

Next week: Patrick gets smart, and Squidward gets body dysphoria.

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