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December 14, 2024

Dec. 14 – SpongeBob Squarepants – SpongeBob’s Road to Christmas

By Joe
Original air date December 10, 2021.

I did not grow up with SpongeBob Squarepants. He is very much a post-Nick show for me as I wasn’t paying much attention to the cable channel when he premiered. Over the years, little has changed for me when it comes to SpongeBob Squarepants save for the fact that I’ve come to appreciate the show’s take on Christmas. SpongeBob Squarepants has two all-timers for Christmas specials on its resume. There may be more than just the two, but as far as I know the little sponge is batting 1.000 when it comes to Christmas. When I found out a new Christmas episode was due to air in 2021 I immediately took notice. I obviously didn’t write about it then, or the year after, or the year after that, but today I am going to remedy that. Can “SpongeBob’s Road to Christmas” possibly live up to the show’s other Christmas specials? Let’s find out.

The episode begins as any other without any extra holiday fanfare. The title card is at least set to an instrumental version of “Deck the Halls.” When the episode begins, we’re shown a traditionally animated (for this era of the show) shot of Bikini Bottom decked out for the holidays. It’s somehow covered in snow or a snow-like substance, but this show has very few rules when it comes to its setting. SpongeBob (Tom Kenny) is in his aforementioned pineapple under the sea preparing for Santa’s arrival. Unlike most people, or sponges, SpongeBob actually has a present for Santa. Either he’s really generous or he’s angling for a little something extra. Either way, it’s a nice gesture that goes beyond the typical cookies and milk.

I don’t think you’re fitting down that chimney, pal.

SpongeBob, along with his pet snail Gary, retire for the evening since Santa doesn’t visit homes with active residents. And soon enough, Santa (Lewis Black in what is a pretty atypical role for him) arrives! It’s a bit weird seeing him animated in a more traditional sense after only seeing him depicted in the stop-motion A SpongeBob Christmas, but his design seems to be more or less the same. He has a rather elven appearance to some of his facial features, but he also has the big, round, belly one would expect of Santa. Initially, he has a little trouble navigating SpongeBob’s home on account of the fact that he’s way too big. I guess we didn’t see this aspect of Santa back in that other special, but he actually needs to shrink himself with magic dust in order to enter the home. Once inside, he’s positively giddy as he dances and prances about SpongeBob’s living room. His jiggling, bulbous, ass knocks the present SpongeBob left out for him behind the couch without him ever noticing it. He places a gift for SpongeBob under the tree and then departs.

This story is a tragedy unlike any other.

Seven months later, we find SpongeBob doing some vacuuming in his home. He moves the couch to vacuum behind it and there he finds the present he left out for Santa all covered in dust and cobwebs. At first, he has almost no reaction to it, but then the realization sets in. Santa didn’t get his present! It’s two-hundred and twelve days late (making this exactly seven months later on July 25th, assuming no leap year) and all SpongeBob can do is clutch the present to his bosom and roll around on the floor sobbing. Roses rain down upon him as he does and they’re from Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke) who thinks SpongeBob is performing or something. SpongeBob rises to his feet and informs Patrick of the situation. He doesn’t see the big deal here and rather matter-of-factly just suggests to SpongeBob that he deliver the present to Santa himself. Sleigh bells ring in SpongeBob’s head at the suggestion which he absolutely loves! Patrick volunteers to go too, but the only issue remaining is how to get there? Patrick suggests they push and shove their way to the North Pole and, wouldn’t you know, SpongeBob loves that idea too. He opens his face like a locker and stores the gift for Santa inside himself for safe-keeping, then Patrick shoves him out the door.

Plankton does make for a pretty convincing booger.

The two idiots, I mean friends, take turns pushing each other down the street laughing all the way. Nearby, Plankton (Mr. Lawrence) emerges from the confines of The Chum Bucket looking rather smug. I don’t know why, or if that’s just his natural disposition, but he soon gets squished by a rolling SpongeBob. SpongeBob pops up from the ground and Patrick mistakes the glob of Plankton on his nose for a booger. He offers SpongeBob his handkerchief who accepts it and delivers a hearty blow leaving behind what Patrick refers to as the ugliest booger he’s ever seen. The booger soon reveals itself to be Plankton who seems to be taking this all in stride. SpongeBob tells him what’s going on and Plankton gets an idea. Ever since he got the phrase “Born to be Naughty” tattooed on his right arm Santa has had him on the Naughty List. If he were to sneak into Santa’s workshop and change his designation on said list then he could finally receive the Krabby Patty secret formula for Christmas! Again!

They’re going to be traveling in style.

Plankton informs the two that he’s coming with which they don’t seem to mind at all. When they ask how he’d like to be shoved, Plankton smugly whips out a remote. Informing the two they’ll travel via other means, he presses a button and out from the Chum Bucket emerges a sort of fishbowl on snowmobile treads and skis. Plankton informs the pair he built it to fly and run over bodies in preparation for the zombie apocalypse. I’m guessing they needed to include the zombie apocalypse bit to please the network censors since they likely couldn’t simply depict Plankton as murderous.

Is that regret I see on Plankton’s face?

The three strap in with Plankton insisting on fastening their seatbelts. SpongeBob does as he’s told while Patrick just pulls his shorts over his head. Plankton is clearly showing some signs of regret in bringing these two along, but the decision has been made. He fires up the vehicle and it rockets off nearly taking out Mr. Krabs as they zoom past the Krabby Patty. SpongeBob and Patrick almost immediately jump out of their seats to look out the window and at all the fish they’re passing over including one farmer fish who mistakes their vehicle for a UFO. Plankton barks at them to return to their seats, but Patrick points out that the seatbelt light has been turned off. Plankton has no retort and the flying machine soars off into the sky. Or undersea. Whatever.

Plankton is only interested in what’s in the box for about five seconds. That’s about as long as I pondered the subject, myself.

Night falls and Plankton is looking beat. Lucky for him, the ship is equipped with autopilot so he’s able to go to bed, but first he needs to pick on SpongeBob. SpongeBob has been polishing his gift (it’s wrapped in a conventional box so he’s just polishing paper) and Plankton decides that he’s entitled to a peek. He snatches it out of SpongeBob’s hands and starts shaking it around wondering what’s inside. SpongeBob isn’t telling, and he turns his own eyeball like the dial of a safe to open his face and stash the gift back inside. Plankton expresses hope that the contents are a stink bomb since he has a hatred of Mr. Claus, which SpongeBob takes offense to when Plankton refers to him as potbellied (“Santa is not potbellied, he just suffers from seasonal bloating”). Plankton doesn’t care enough to argue and heads to bed, which for him is a cot onboard the ship. For SpongeBob and Patrick, it’s the floor.

The North Pole?

When Plankton wakes up in the morning he’s irritated to see SpongeBob and Patrick at the controls of the ship. He demands to know what they’re doing, but they’re happy to inform him that they’ve found the North Pole and way sooner than he said they would. Plankton is skeptical and asks how long he’s been asleep, but there’s no time for that as the ground is rapidly approaching. The ship smacks into the sign for Christmas Land Theme Park and it would appear to be on actual, dry, land. Plankton jumps onto the console to claim his rightful spot as pilot, but the seatbelt light is on so Patrick just slams him into the co-pilot chair and straps him in. Patrick is apparently the one in charge, and when Plankton asks if he even knows how to land this thing he responds with, “I know how to crash land!” The ship, almost gently, crashes into the snow-covered ground and skids to a halt at the actual North Pole. It just barely touches the pole as it comes to a complete stop and naturally this results in an explosion.

They’re certainly convinced.

Despite the explosion, the ship seems to be fine. Well, everything except the navigation system. The boys emerge from the ship (with fishbowls full of water on their heads) to bask in the glory of the North Pole. Plankton is rightly irritated with the damage done to the ship, while Patrick and SpongeBob don’t appear to be phased one bit. As they start walking through the park, Patrick and SpongeBob are captivated by their surroundings. They’re also unable to discern a fake elf or fake reindeer from a real one. Plankton, on the other hand, has taken note of the lack of coldness and the presence of smog in the air, but SpongeBob and Patrick just declare it’s some special “snog” and continue prancing along delighted by their own ignorance while Plankton just looks defeated.

This place has seen better days.

SpongeBob and Patrick then come to the heart of the apparent North Pole: Santa’s workshop. Inside, some barely functioning animatronic elves are working a toy assembly line and, once again, the two knuckleheads think they’re real. SpongeBob finally shows a tiny bit of concern on his face when one of the robot heads falls off the body of the elf and onto the assembly line where the next elf smashes it with a hammer. His concern quickly evaporates though when he takes note of a sign that says “Meet Santa Claus.” The building where this meet n’ greet is to take place is actually one the nicer pieces of scenery so far. SpongeBob and Patrick head in enthusiastically while Plankton is still piecing things together. He hasn’t quite figured out where they are, but he knows it’s a sham. SpongeBob tells him that Christmas is about believing while Patrick either has a different philosophy or mishears him as he chimes in with “Yeah, Christmas is about bleeding.”

Wait! What? Santa?!

The three walk down a dilapidated red carpet (the interior of this place is not the equal of the exterior) until they finally come to him – the big man! Or, well, he is indeed a big man, but he’s also asleep and snoring loudly in a big chair. SpongeBob and Patrick run at him while Plankton can scarcely believe it. The two nitwits each jump onto one of Santa’s knees and sit with giddy anticipation for Santa to wake up. His eyes crack open a tiny bit and he asks them what they want for Christmas. SpongeBob and Patrick immediately start shouting over each other a whole bunch of unintelligible stuff as they must be among the few thinking of Christmas lists in July. Santa’s eyes then finally flutter open to see who is actually on his knee. To my surprise, he knows them by name! Is this guy the real deal after all? He also tells SpongeBob that he’s his biggest fan and SpongeBob is forced to correct him that Patchy the Pirate is actually his biggest fan. Which makes sense, because this ain’t Santa.

Oh, it’s just Patchy! I was wondering if he was going to appear in this one.

It’s Patchy (Tom Kenny)! He pulls off his Santa costume and presents himself to SpongeBob and Patrick. Upon seeing this, SpongeBob and Patrick’s head literally explode. Once reassembled though, they’re pretty happy to see old Patchy, but what they’re not happy about is finding out they’re at an amusement park in Encino and approximately 4,000 miles away from the North Pole. Plankton is pretty pissed they went so far off course while SpongeBob is just bummed that their GPS is busted. Patchy cheerfully offers an alternative to GPS – a map! And don’t forget about Potty (Lawrence), the broken down toy parrot thing, who drops in with a compass which just so happens to land on and subsequently crush Plankton. He shakes his fist at the parrot while asking “Polly want a smacker?!” SpongeBob and Patrick cheerfully hop down off of Patchy’s knees with their map and compass and bid their old fan goodbye. As they depart, Patchy requests they tell Santa “Hi” for him and to let him know that he wants a new parrot for Christmas. Potty smacks him over the head and tells him he’d like a new pirate for Christmas.

The real North Pole is a lot colder than that other one.

The boys set off once again and we see their adventure unfold over the map. They get off to a bad start first traveling across the U.S. all the way to Florida where they’re eaten by an alligator. They escape to Idaho, before getting diverted to Nova Scotia where an angry moose donkey-kicks them up to the North Pole. When they arrive, we see the effects of the cold as Plankton is encased in a block of ice while SpongeBob has turned blue and is shivering beside him. Patrick, who has been asleep, is also blue and wakes up to ask if they’ve arrived yet, only for his eyes to shatter. Patrick and SpongeBob then disembark from the ship to approach the real Santa’s work shop. Plankton is conspicuously absent, or not. He’s actually still in ice and SpongeBob asks Patrick if he’s enjoying his “Plankton Pop.” Patrick, who has Plankton pinned between his face and the glass of the bowl over his head, declares he can’t wait to get to the chewy center. We get a close-up of Plankton which looks rather horrifying.

She may seem nice, but she’s kind of terrible.

SpongeBob and Patrick approach the door with giddy expressions on their faces. SpongeBob then realizes that Plankton has gone missing and asks Patrick where he went. The starfish looks momentarily perplexed, then his jaws are forced open by a very haggard looking Plankton. He’s able to get out of Patrick’s bowl-helmet and tells the guy he needs to do something about his terrible breath. The door to Santa’s work shop is then opened and a female elf (Jill Talley) pokes her head out. She immediately mistakes the pair for trick-or-treaters even though they would be three months early. Plankton, now seeing an open door, vacates the area as he doesn’t care what’s going on with Patrick and SpongeBob. He slaps a pair of elf ears onto his own bowl and heads inside.

I’m not so sure that’s milk.

SpongeBob tells the elf they’re not trick-or-treaters, but are actually here to see Santa. It would probably have been helpful if he explained why, but he doesn’t. The elf has some bad news though: Santa has gone on vacation with his wife in Aruba and isn’t currently here (so that’s what he does during the offseason). She speaks to them in a cheerful, but supremely condescending manner which makes her kind of terrible. She tosses the pair a candy cane each and then bids them farewell with a “Happy Halloween.” SpongeBob is pretty downhearted about the rejection, but Patrick is happy to have some free candy. Really happy. He reacts to eating the candy cane like it’s crack or something. That’s probably not a good thing. The two peer through the window and see the total elf rager going on inside. They’re behaving like drunks, but they’re clearly just drinking milk and eating cookies. Plankton is also in there trying his best not to get stepped on. SpongeBob reasons they need to get inside to leave Santa his present. Patrick has an idea for how to get in, but SpongeBob decides they should do it Santa style. Patrick, who can be seen at the controls of a wrecking ball, is disappointed in SpongeBob’s choice.

They have some pretty big reindeer up here.

Meanwhile, Plankton is strolling about the area in search of Santa’s mainframe. He intends to hack it so that he can put himself on the Nice List. Or take himself off the Naughty List. I guess he has to do both. As he walks through the compound, he sees a group of reindeer working out. These reindeer are pretty serious as they pump iron. Their overall shape reminds me of the shaven yak from The Ren & Stimpy Show. Plankton avoids them, but apparently not well enough for he’s soon approached by a rather nasty looking reindeer. He has a round, blue, nose which is probably why he’s called Bludolph (Clancy Brown). I don’t know if the name is ever said in the episode, but it’s how he’s credited. Anyway, he thinks Plankton is up to no good and Plankton certainly doesn’t look like any elf he’s ever seen. Plankton tries to play it cool, but when Bludolph is clearly not fooled he kicks snow in his face and calls him a moose. Bad move, Plankton, as Bludolph summons the other reindeer for some reindeer games. And the game is hacky sack with Plankton serving as the sack. As he’s sent through the air we get a poop joke as he shouts “That better be mud on your hooves,” after getting kicked.

Uh oh, they’ve angered the elves!

We cut to a fireplace and out from it emerges SpongeBob and Patrick. They’re in a rather cozy looking room and before them stands Santa’s Christmas tree. The two are in awe, but despite their reaction I have to say it’s a pretty conventional looking Christmas tree. All that’s left is for SpongeBob to do what he set out to and leave Santa his present, but as they approach the tree with their arms linked an alarm is triggered. The elves burst in and the girl elf from early recognizes the pair of “trick or treaters.” They think they’re hear to steal toys. They’re also too angry to listen to any sort of reason as they burst in forcing SpongeBob and Patrick to escape by climbing up the tree.

Both parties seem to give as good as they get.

It’s at this point that Bludolph and the other reindeer storm in as they were alerted to the break-in as well. This means Plankton’s beating is over, but he gets stepped on by a reindeer for good measure. He pops up wondering if they’ve had enough and calls them a bunch of cariboobs. It’s a good insult since reindeer are indeed caribou. I guess Bludolph and company are kind of like the security up here, but they also seem to have some conflict with the elves. They feel like the reindeer are out of line for coming to their aid and there’s quite a bit of hostility between the two. When a reindeer gets mistakenly hit by a toy the elves were throwing at SpongeBob and Patrick, a brawl breaks out between elves and reindeer. Despite the reindeer being the far larger species, the elves certainly came to play and both sides take on some casualties. Though some of it is self-inflicted on the part of the reindeer. One of them, I think it’s Prancer, manages to get his antlers stuck in a ceiling fan causing him to fall on some elves. Then his snout gets run over by a train.

Looks like Plankton found what he was looking for. Take that, Bono.

SpongeBob is forced to observe the horror from high in the Christmas tree. He blames himself for this since he was the catalyst for the confrontation. He looks to Patrick for support, but he’s enraptured by the aroma of candy canes and of no use to SpongeBob now. A vicious looking elf is also climbing the tree. What he intends to do to SpongeBob should he reach him is anyone’s guess. SpongeBob tries bombarding him with Christmas ornaments, but that only seems to fuel him. Meanwhile, Plankton, having recovered from his own beating, strolls in deftly avoiding the many feet around him. He’s overjoyed when he comes upon the thing that which he seeks: Santa’s mainframe. It’s not issue for him to access it and add himself to the nice list. As he strolls out the door though, he’s once again stepped on.

Don’t worry everyone, Santa will set everything right.

The foot that stepped on Plankton belongs to none other than Santa! He’s none too pleased to have to come back from his vacation early due to the alarm going off in his quarters. He’s less happy to find the elves and reindeer seemingly at war with each other, but he brightens up when he takes notice of SpongeBob who was about to be attacked by the elf from earlier. He even playfully refers to SpongeBob as a menace which the little guy laughs off. He hops down and it’s at this point I’m reminded that Santa had to shrink himself to fit into SpongeBob’s house at the beginning of the episode because now SpongeBob sits in the palm of the big elf’s hand. He explains what’s going on and pulls out the gift he has for Santa. Santa seems touched and he carefully opens the tiny present to find a gloss bottle inside with a piece of parchment within it.

Read it, Plankton!

Plankton, upon seeing the gift, assumes it’s the thing he covets most: the Krabby Patty secret formula! Seeing what he wants before him, he abandons his plan to remain nice until Christmas and instead opts for thievery. He swipes the bottle and taunts Santa for good measure with his tattoo before opening the bottle and taking a look at the message inside. Of course, it’s not the secret formula (why would SpongeBob even have it?) and he sheepishly offers to return the gift to Santa. Seeing an opportunity to punish Plankton a bit, Santa instead demands he read it and Plankton reluctantly does. It’s just a simple message from SpongeBob that notes there’s no present that would be commensurate to what Santa has gifted the world over the years, so instead it’s just a simple message of thanks. Santa gets all teary eyed for no one has ever given him a Christmas present before. No one until SpongeBob Squarepants.

In the next episode, Patrick goes to rehab.

Santa thanks SpongeBob, but the little guy is always looking out for others. He makes sure to point out to Santa that he would never have made it to the North Pole without Plankton’s help. He even tosses in a “he’s not such a bad guy,” to try to sweeten the sentiment. He also credits Patrick to getting him there, which causes him to remember that Patrick is still in the tree! We pan to Patrick in the tree who has managed to get his hands (flippers?) on several candy canes. His eyes are all striped again and he just offers up a “Happy holidays to me!” I think it would have been funnier if he said happy Halloween.

SpongeBob is the king of thoughtful, inexpensive, gifts. I kind of envy him.

Fast forward five months and it’s a Christmas party at the famed The Krusty Krab. SpongeBob and all of his friends are enjoying the festivities as presents are being handed out. Plankton is there as well and we see him cheerlessly open another present which contains a lump of coal. He tosses it aside where it lands amongst a pile of other coal. SpongeBob then sidles on up and gives Plankton a gift as well. It’s a picture of him, Patrick, and Plankton with Patchy the Pirate from their adventure to the North Pole. It also contains a message of encouragement from SpongeBob for Plankton as it says “One day you will destroy us all!”

Though in this case, SpongeBob’s words of encouragement have apparently unleased this thing upon the undersea world.

Upon reading such words of encouragement Plankton appears touched. Then his soft expression is replaced with a hardened one. One of determination and malevolence! He shovels all of that coal immediately into a giant robot which has just been standing there. The coal-powered monster belches fire and we cut to an exterior shot of the restaurant now glowing from the fire within as the sounds of screams (and Plankton’s laugher) coming from inside take us to credits.

SpongeBob’s journey to the North Pole did not surprise me in that it doesn’t quite live up to what’s come before it. That’s not a slight against this Christmas episode, but more an acknowledgement of how good the previous two were. I do like the premise as it’s very much a SpongeBob plot to want to make sure Santa Claus himself gets a present on Christmas. The show does a fine enough job of coming up with something for SpongeBob to hand over to Kris Kringle and it’s not really important, anyway. This episode is about the journey. It’s a road trip for SpongeBob and his best friend plus the odd pairing of Plankton. All good road trip movies include an oil and water dynamic and that’s what inserting Plankton into the plot does here. It also provides the plot a mode of transportation and giving Plankton the goal of getting himself onto the Nice List works well enough.

Plankton carries this one for me. He’s so deliciously evil!

Where things stumble a bit for me is in the actual journey. Every road trip story needs a part where the journey clearly has gone wrong and a wrong destination or a wrong turn is often the device utilized. Here, it’s a dilapidated amusement park which I guess was fine? It’s a way to work in Patchy the Pirate who played a role in past SpongeBob Christmas episodes so I guess it’s kind of his thing. My issue with it is I think we’re denied more time at the North Pole. There are some unusual dynamics going on up there between the elves and reindeer and I’d have appreciated some more context there. Maybe we could have even had time for Mrs. Claus? It all leads to a sensible resolution though and I like the somewhat violent ending with Plankton. It caught me by surprise and that’s a pretty hard trick for a Christmas episode to pull off.

“SpongeBob’s Road to Christmas” is a perfectly charming and entertaining little Christmas episode. It’s unlikely to blow anyone away, but it’s entertaining and not too derivative of other Christmas travel specials. It’s only real failing is not being as good as A SpongeBob Christmas. If you’d like to spend time with the sponge and his friends then you can find this episode streaming on Paramount+. It’s also likely to be shown on Nickelodeon a few times this month and I bet you still have time to find it if you still have a cable subscription.

Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:

Dec. 14 – All Grown Up! – The Finster Who Stole Christmas

In 2001, Rugrats had the honor of being the first Nicktoon to make it 10 years. The path to that honor was not a smooth one as the show had effectively been cancelled in 1993 with the third season. That appeared to not be performance related, but more strategic on the part of Nickelodeon as…

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by Joe

Dec. 14 – Rugrats – “The Santa Experience”

Yesterday, we took a look at the 1992 Christmas special from the third Nickelodeon Nicktoon The Ren & Stimpy Show. Today, we’re basically working backwards and talking about the second Nicktoon to premiere: Rugrats. The Ren & Stimpy Show is probably the most celebrated of the original Nicktoons when it comes to animation circles, but…

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by Joe

Dec. 14 – Gifts from the Air

For today’s subject, we’re going all the way back to 1937 to talk about the Columbia Pictures Gifts from the Air. This particular cartoon comes from an era dominated by Disney, Warner Bros, and MGM with a tip of the cap to Noveltoons. The Color Rhapsody Theatrical Cartoon Series is not particularly well-remembered outside of…

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by Joe

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December 10, 2021

Dec. 10 – It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!

By Joe
Original air date November 23, 2012.

For December 10, we are returning to the theme of this year which is to revisit the best of the best. When I originally ranked my favorite Christmas specials, I had the recently released It’s a SpongeBob Christmas! ranked at #19. The years have been kind to this throwback Christmas special as last year I bumped SpongeBob and the residents of Bikini Bottom all the way up to #11! And from where I sit, it’s not in any danger of dropping back to 19, if anything, it’s a threat to move up into the Top 10 because this is a pretty fantastic way to celebrate Christmas.

Christmas returns to Bikini Bottom, but in a cool, new, old, way!

SpongeBob Squarepants is a show, and character, that I missed. I wasn’t watching Nickelodeon when he premiered and I’ve never made it a point in my life to see what all the fuss is about. I’ve seen episodes here and there, enough to know how the show works, but the only appointment viewing this show has ever produced for me is this Christmas special. When I saw the promos for this special I immediately was interested because the show had made the decision to produce a stop-motion Christmas special in the same vein as the old Rankin/Bass specials. If you’re going to enter the crowded world of Christmas specials and you’re looking to stand out, nostalgia is a recipe for success! Now, not everyone can just up and decide they want to do something like this and it helps that SpongeBob appeared to have the backing of Nickelodeon and the Viacom company since this sucker was ticketed for a CBS premiere. Sadly, CBS hasn’t turned this one into an annual tradition, but at least for one night there was an air of importance attached.

SpongeBob has the right DNA for a Christmas protagonist.

The animation for this episode was produced by Screen Novelties and directed by two of the studio’s founders: Mark Caballero and Seamus Walsh. Screen Novelties is a modern producer of stop-motion and has worked with yesterday’s feature, Robot Chicken, as well as famed visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen, so SpongeBob found himself in good company for this one. Screen Novelties also participated in the restoration of some of the puppets from the original special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, so they have significant Christmas cred. A collective of writers worked on this story, and it was partially inspired by the song featured in the episode, “Don’t Be a Jerk (It’s Christmas),” which was recorded by Tom Kenny and Andy Paley in 2009. It’s a semi-conventional plot, where a bad guy and naughty list regular tries to trick Santa into giving him a present for Christmas. The unconventional part is the method utilized to get on Santa’s famed nice list.

Patchy and Potty are back for another Christmas episode!

The special begins with old friend Patchy the Pirate (Tom Kenny) and his parrot sidekick, Potty (Paul Tibbitt). We met both in the original Christmas special from SpongeBob Squarepants, and when we catch up with them here we find Patchy driving a mail truck. It’s design, and Patchy’s, is reminiscent of Special Delivery from Santa Claus is Coming to Town, though it has conventional tires. Patchy informs us he’s giving the mailman some time off, by tying him up in the back of the truck. He wants to get to Santa so he can ask him to introduce him to his hero, SpongeBob, and Potty seems to be just along for the ride. Unfortunately, they’re about to hit a literal fork in the road which causes the vehicle to spin out of control. While the truck is spinning, Patchy suggests we peek in on old SpongeBob and see what he’s up to this Christmas.

SpongeBob has a rather festive pineapple.

We then head under the sea, after a modestly festive rendition of the credits, and the stop-motion set looks gorgeous. SpongeBob (Tom Kenny) emerges from his bed singing a festive tune, “Santa Has His Eye on Me,” as he decorates his home. He spins his entire pineapple house to wrap lights around it, and there is an animation cheat when it’s done as the lights that wrapped around his door have vanished. He sprouts a Santa hat and hops his way over to Squidward’s (Rodger Bumpass) house to find his crotchety neighbor decorating as well. This seems like a change of heart since we last saw Squidward at Christmas, but he lets us know his decorations serve a purpose: to tell Santa to go away! SpongeBob then checks in on his buddy Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke) who appears to be setting up a traditional box trap. It’s baited with a Christmas cookie, and Patrick explains to the tune of “The Nutcracker Suite” that he intends to catch Santa so he can have Christmas every day! He then sees his cookie and promptly traps himself. Also, an image of Santa dominates the “sky” momentarily while SpongeBob sings about Santa having his eye on him and it’s super creepy. Santa is some sort of sea elf. He looks like an old doll that was left to soak in the ocean and then dried out.

Squidward’s home is considerably less festive.

SpongeBob then pays a visit to his pal Sandy (Carolyn Lawrence) in her dome. She’s deconstructing the Christmas spirit or something via alchemy and seems to be having a good time. At the Krusty Krab, Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown) is decorating the restaurant in anticipation of the “Season of getting.” When SpongeBob tries to correct him, he further corrects SpongeBob because he’s a greedy prick.

Plankton has a plan to get on Santa’s nice list.

At the Chum Bucket, Plankton (Mr. Lawrence) continues our song as he sings about Santa watching him too. He punctuates the song by announcing that every year he gets a stocking full of coal! His computer A.I., Karen (Jill Talley), chimes in that he’d probably get presents if he wasn’t the biggest jerk in Bikini Bottom, and that’s when we find out Plankton has a plan. Since it would be too hard for him to just be nice, he’s going to make everyone in Bikini Bottom a bigger jerk than even he so that he looks nice by comparison. And just how is he going to do that? By lacing the most innocent of holiday treats, the fruit cake, with the substance Jerktonium. Apparently, just one speck of the stuff will turn an ordinary person into a colossal jerk!

Fruit Cake jokes are a pet peeve of mine when it comes to Christmas specials. Here, it works because the special has you bracing for such a joke, but it never comes. Instead, everyone loves the stuff, especially SpongeBob.

Plankton prepares his fruit cake and then loads up a special dispenser he created that’s part oven and part go-kart. He takes it for a spin outside and immediately encounters SpongeBob. Upon seeing the little fruit cake cart, SpongeBob gets excited and asks if he can try some of his fruit cake. Plankton is happy to oblige and SpongeBob devours a slice. When Plankton inquires to see how SpongeBob is feeling, he finds he’s his usual cheerful, annoying, self and won’t stop raving about the fruit cake. Plankton gives him some more, but the result remains the same. Plankton then goes into a mini rage and starts firing fruit cake at SpongeBob who continues to devour it. Defeated, Plankton decides to retreat into the Chum Bucket, but before he does he hands SpongeBob the keys to his fruit cake cart since he’s so eager to share it with the rest of the town.

This idyllic Christmas setting is about to be poisoned by fruit cake.

SpongeBob pilots the cart over to a trio of carolers (Kenny, Fagerbakke, Lawrence) and offers them some fruit cake. They’re all happy to be offered the most foul of holiday “treats” and eat a slice each as SpongeBob looks on. After they’re done eating, a change comes over the carolers and each ends up with angry eyes and a five-o-clock shadow. They bicker about what song to sing and argue over which “bells” song is superior: “Jingle Bells” or “Silver Bells.” The third chimes in about wanting to sing “Randolph the Red-Nosed Seahorse” and they start to fight. SpongeBob drives away content that they enjoyed the fruit cake, seemingly oblivious to the violence that has commenced, while Plankton emerges from the Chum Bucket pleased to see the Jerktonium working on these “jerks.”

SpongeBob is so hopped-up on Christmas spirit that he’s oblivious to the chaos all around him.

SpongeBob then happens upon a festive, Christmas, parade. He decides that this would be a wonderful place to spread Christmas joy via Plankton’s fruit cake and hops right into the fray. SpongeBob goes into a new song about spreading holiday cheer as he fires off volley after volley of fruit cake towards the onlookers. They all eat their fruit cake and immediately turn into jerks. We see some minor stuff like a kid popping a balloon and another smashing a present. We also get to see Mr. Krab’s whale daughter, Pearl, get angry and start blasting others with her blowhole (that’s a weird sentence to type). Soon the town is in flames as fish grapple in the street while a kid (Carolyn Lawrence) seated on a fake Santa (Brown) details the stuff he wants for Christmas. SpongeBob gives him some fruit cake and the Santa turns into a jerk and tells the kid to get a job. SpongeBob then gives the driver of the float some fruit cake causing him to abandon his responsibilities sending the float to drive off a cliff. The kid seems happy about it though as he starts bouncing on the semi-conscious Santa like a trampoline.

Plankton has a pretty solid Plan B.

Plankton then returns to the Chum Bucket pleased with how things are going. He just has one problem: SpongeBob. Karen refers to the sponge as a fatal flaw pointing out that he’s immune to the effects of Jerktonium. Plankton assures her he has an answer to that problem and unveils his latest creation: Robot SpongeBob! The robot looks just like SpongeBob, only he’s all steel and probably twice as big. A reasonable person wouldn’t confuse the two, but that’s the joke! Plankton winds him up and commands his creation to go ruin SpongeBob’s good name as it blasts a stream of fire from its nose. He then heads for the Krusty Krab, smashing a boat along the way. Mr. Krabs meets the mechanical sponge at the door and immediately mistakes him for SpongeBob, but seems to assume he’s not the one responsible for the commotion since he’s SpongeBob and all. The robot then knocks over the Krusty Krab sign which lands on the restauranteur while Plankton looks on with glee.

It’s so cold Patchy’s signature eyewear is cracking.

We then hop back to check-in on Patchy and Potty. Their mail truck is still spinning but it eventually crashes into a snowbank allowing the mailman to escape. The hogtied mail carrier hops away while Patchy inspects the damaged tire which still has the fork stuck in it. He tells the viewers to go make some coco while Potty builds him a fire. When we return, the duo are freezing around a fire in the middle of the night. Patchy laments he hasn’t eaten anything for 20 minutes and could really go for a plate of Buffalo wings. He then hallucinates Potty as a plate of just that and tries to eat the bird, but gets a mouth full of log instead. When he comes to his senses, he apologizes to Potty who then in turn hallucinates Patchy as some sort of pizza slice covered in bird seed. He hops onto Patchy’s head and starts pecking at him as we dissolve back into the undersea world.

Squidward, a regular jerk, is about to have a splitting headache.

SpongeBob is driving around in Plankton’s fruit cake buggy and is surprised to find everyone acting like jerks. Mr. Krabs sees him and lets him know he’ll be garnishing his wages to pay for repairs to the restaurant. SpongeBob then comes across Patrick who is setting up a more elaborate trap for Santa. He’s also stuffing his face with fruit cake and acts like a jerk towards SpongeBob. Dismayed, SpongeBob heads home in confusion. He wakes up the next morning, Christmas Eve morning, hopeful things will be better, but when he heads out the door he sees two fish fighting in the street. He decides to check-in with Squidward who won’t even answer the door. He tells him to go bother Sandy and SpongeBob remarks he’ll have to thank Squidward for the advice when Squidward gets home – stupid sponge. As he bounds away, robo-SpongeBob shows up and knocks on the door. When Squidward won’t answer, the robot simply rips the door off of its hinges. Squidward shows up now, and I feel like I should point out he isn’t under the effects of Jerktonium – he’s just a regular jerk, and demands SpongeBob put his door down. The robot does as it’s told by smashing it over Squidward’s head and leaves.

SpongeBob makes an important discovery!

SpongeBob then goes to bother Sandy, as Squidward instructed, about how everyone is acting like jerks. He then finds the squirrel also under the effects of Jerktonium, but she’s at least lucid. Still, she’s a jerk towards SpongeBob and he frets he needs to go find someone who isn’t a raging jerk. As he goes to leave, he slips on an acorn and a piece of fruit cake he was holding goes flying into Sandy’s Christmas analyzer thing-a-ma-jig. She gets pissed at him for getting fruit cake in the machine, but then pauses her anger when the machine reveals the cake is laced with Jerktonium. She then asks where SpongeBob got the cake, and he says from Plankton. When she questions in an incredulous manner that he fed everyone fruit cake made by Plankton he just blankly says “uh huh,” prompting her to call him an idiot. SpongeBob then panics for a moment because he’s eaten a ton of the fruit cake, but Sandy points out the combination of SpongeBob’s pure heart and tiny brain have rendered him immune. She then turns to her machine for an antidote and it spits out sheet music. Sandy gets angry, but SpongeBob (rather surprisingly) recognizes the tune for what it is and can even read it. As he hums it aloud, the Jerktonium affecting Sandy wares off leaving SpongeBob overjoyed. He then sets out to spread the antidote around town.

Just sit back and enjoy the song.

SpongeBob arrives with an “Ahoy everybody!” and goes into the flagship song of the special: “Don’t Be a Jerk (It’s Christmas).” It’s a plenty delightful little song that will definitely stow away in your brain and pop up at the drop of a hat. It’s a real banger in my household. As SpongeBob sings, he does good deeds around town and and we see everyone shaking off the Jerktonium. By the end of it, the whole town is singing and dancing along!

That is one unpleasant looking Santa.

Sandy congratulates SpongeBob for saving the town from Plankton, and just in time, because Santa is here! Despite being under the sea, he arrives via conventional means though only sporting six reindeer. As SpongeBob races over to welcome him to Bikini Bottom he finds a rather sullen Santa. He has the unfortunate responsibility of informing everyone they’re getting coal this year because they’ve all been a bunch of jerks. And much to his surprise, only Plankton is on the nice list! Plankton shows up to get his gift: the secret formula for the Krabby Patty. Delighted, he takes his prize while Mr. Krabs asks Santa how he got that. When he informs the crab that he has his ways, we see an ugly little elf pick his pocket.

I don’t think this is going to be an even match-up.

SpongeBob then pleads their case with Santa, but he’s not interested in hearing an explanation from the naughtiest person in town. He then points out that SpongeBob is being naughty right now and gestures to the robot which is wreaking havoc still. It smashes through a crowd of people then begins to target Santa. SpongeBob jumps in front of his hero willing to defend him with his life, which he may need to expend. The robot SpongeBob doubles in size, apparently going into assault mode or something, and karate chops SpongeBob right between the eyes. The dazed and disfigured SpongeBob still stands ready and the robot picks him up and flings him off into the distance.

Who will save Santa?!

Santa then beats a hasty retreat, but rather than fly away, he tries hiding in the Krusty Krab. The robot simply lifts the restaurant up and pulls Santa out. When all hope appears lost, SpongeBob returns! Now driving the fruit cake cart once again, he whirls and fires away at the robot with sticky fruit cake. It appears to gum up the exhaust ports and the robot soon explodes!

It’s SpongeBob! With a cool, motion-blurring, background!

Santa shakes SpongeBob’s hand and thanks him for saving his hide. He’s now convinced that SpongeBob is indeed a very good boy, but frets over how his list could be so wrong. The elves then bring something to his attention: the wind-up crank leftover from the exploding SpongeBob robot. Santa inspects it and finds a message stamped onto it, “If found please return to the Chum Bucket.” He then shouts out for Plankton in an angry tone, who sheepishly tries to duck away still clutching onto the bottle that contains the secret formula. Mr. Krabs gets to him and orders him to hand it over. When he initially refuses, Mr. Krabs pinches his head with his claws and takes it away then flings him up against the Chum Bucket like a freshly picked booger.

SpongeBob just got onto the nice list for life.

Back in his sleigh, Santa is ready to take off. He wishes everyone in Bikini Bottom a merry Christmas as the reindeer take flight, or swim, or whatever. As Santa flies off, we see Patrick has stowed away on the back of the sleigh armed with a net. As they fly in front of the full moon, Patrick strikes! If he is successful at catching Santa, we don’t know, but he sure gave it a good try.

Stupid Plankton.

We then check-in with Patchy and Potty once again. Patchy appears to have stumbled onto Santa’s workshop which is in a snowy cave. He races inside to find the fat man seated on a throne. Patchy immediately whips out a list and tells Santa that what he wants for Christmas is to meet his hero: SpongeBob Squarepants! When he finishes his request, he finds Santa is pouring salt over his head. The screen then dissolves and we find out that Patchy is hallucinating again and the creature gently salting him isn’t Santa, but a very hungry polar bear! He runs out of the cave with the polar bear chasing after him The real Santa and Potty are standing outside the real workshop while Santa checks his list. Noting that stealing a mail truck definitely counts as naughty, he adds Patchy to his list as he and Potty share a laugh. They then turn to the camera and wave wishing us all a merry Christmas!

Even under the sea, we still get a moon shot!

And so ends the very special It’s a SpongeBob Christmas! Many Christmas episodes feel just like that, an episode that just happens to feature Christmas. Few are worthy of the term Christmas Special, and this one certainly qualifies. The music and festive scenery go a long way in conveying that special Christmas magic, but it’s the animation that really takes this one to another level. Stop-motion lends itself very well to Bikini Bottom. When your main character is an actual sponge, that certainly helps because it’s wonderful to see this character have actual texture. It works for the other characters as well and the ones who shouldn’t be squishy or furry are done in a different style. Mr. Krabs is a good example there as he has a smooth texture befitting an actual crab and the robot SpongeBob looks like an actual wind-up toy. The only character I wasn’t enamored with is Santa himself, who just features a weird design. He looks like he’s falling apart or something and is kind of gross, but he’s not in it that much in the end.

Patchy probably getting what he deserved.

The interesting thing about this special is if you strip away what makes it so special it would still work. If this were traditionally animated and without songs it would be a fun Christmas episode. It works as just a soundtrack, and I would totally buy a set of figurines made to look like the puppets in this special and make a Christmas display out of them. It’s a rare example of a show going all-out for Christmas and totally nailing it. It’s one I recommend to fans of SpongeBob and to people who have never watched a second of the show. It’s easily one of the best Christmas specials of the past decade and deserves to stand alongside the classics as well.

Is Patchy responsible for all of those infractions on Santa’s list? No wonder why they’re apparently letting the polar bear have his way.

If you want to catch It’s a SpongeBob Christmas! this year, and I obviously recommend that you do, then tune into Nickelodeon and its various offshoot channels all month long as it’s guaranteed to air multiple times. The entire show is also streaming on Paramount’s streaming platform and this episode can be found in Season 8. I wouldn’t be surprised one bit if a special holiday channel is also featured on the network that makes finding this one even easier. If neither option works for you, then you can also buy the special on physical media or rent it via other streaming platforms. However you choose to view it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:

Dec. 10 – The Town Santa Forgot

Come the 1990s, the cartoon juggernaut known as Hanna-Barbera was fading. It’s said the company once had control of approximately 80% of the children’s programming on television and even come 1990 it was still around 20%. The studio’s last big hit had been The Smurfs which set all kinds of Saturday morning records despite few…

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by Joe

Dec. 10 – Merry Christmas, Super Dave!

  There are a lot of cartoons that have come and gone in my lifetime, many I forgot even existed until something jars my memory. Earlier this year we lost comedian Bob Einstein. Einstein is probably best known for his role on Curb Your Enthusiasm, but twenty years ago he was best known for his…

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by Joe

Dec. 10 – The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries – “Feather Christmas”

One of the earliest Kids’ WB shows was The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries. It centered on Granny (June Foray) and her pets Tweety Bird (Joe Alaskey), Sylvester the cat (Alaskey), and Hector the bulldog (Frank Welker) and they went around, I bet you’ll never guess, solving mysteries. The personalities of the characters are all pretty…

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by Joe

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in christmas, Television

December 24, 2020

Dec. 24 – The SpongeBob Christmas Special

By Joe
Original air date December 6, 2000

When I listed out the best Christmas specials over a week ago, I included the stop-motion A SpongeBob Christmas. And I stand by that as that special is pretty great. Before there was A SpongeBob Christmas, there was The SpongeBob Christmas Special. Confused? Well, there are only so many ways to title a Christmas special. To make things a bit easier (or more complicated) it’s also titled “Christmas Who?” This was a milestone episode of sorts for the now long-running SpongeBob SquarePants as it introduced Patchy the Pirate and his parrot Potty and told the story of how Christmas came to Bikini Bottom. It was also the first double-length cartoon for the show as most episodes are split into two segments. It’s probably not quite double-length though due to the live-action segments featuring Patchy, but you get the idea.

Meet the president of the SpongeBob fan club, kids!

SpongeBob Squarepants was created by the late Stephen Hillenburg, who got a lot of coverage on this blog in 2020 since I went back and revisited Rocko’s Modern Life, a show he was intimately involved with. It was due to the success of that show that Nickelodeon took a chance on a cartoon headed up by Hillenburg himself. Other veterans of Rocko joined him on SpongeBob, including Tom Kenny and Doug Lawrence, and his show has largely eclipsed the former in terms of popularity. It’s probably become Nickelodeon’s most recognizable show at this point and I’m not even sure another show could really challenge it for that title at this point.

Do you like alternate titles, because we’ve got one here.

In spite of SpongeBob’s popularity, the show has mostly been a blind spot for me. The show just came at a time when I wasn’t watching the channel, and even though I have kids of my own now, they’ve yet to really latch onto anything on Nickelodeon. Maybe they will in time, though with everything moving towards a streaming format I’m less certain of that. Even though SpongeBob SquarePants isn’t my childhood, I can recognize it for what it is: a pretty solid comedic cartoon. I see a lot of influences from past cartoons in it the few times I watch it, and I’ve never really had much of a reaction to it beyond that.

For today’s special, we’re heading to the home of Patchy the Pirate located in the unfestively warm California (I have a cold weather bias when it comes to Christmas).

Even though I’ve seen very little of SpongeBob SquarePants, I still really enjoyed the stop-motion special so I’ve always wanted to check out this one. It just took me going out of my way to make sure I saw it. Thankfully, I have cable still so I didn’t have to go out and buy this thing, and with 2020 just being a tenacious pile of misery, I actually welcomed Nickelodeon’s Christmas in July programming during the summer. That’s how I finally experienced the first SpongeBob Christmas special. Maybe it’s not the authentic, December, experience it was meant to be, but it also meant I got to re-experience it later in the year too thanks to the wonders of DVR!

The bird is the real star.

After a festive rendition of the show’s theme, the special begins at the home of the president of the SpongeBob fan club: Patchy the Pirate. Played by Tom Kenny, Patchy is happily preparing for Christmas in the not idyllic setting of southern California. Even though there’s no snow to speak of, Patchy’s house is pretty well decorated and he’s got his parrot, Potty (voiced by Hillenburg) by his side as well. Patchy is a pretty conventional looking pirate, while Potty is an intentionally obvious puppet. Patchy is welcoming, like a classic holiday special would be, though he has an antagonistic relationship with his parrot. He’s in the process of making cookies, and isn’t eager to share the dough with Potty.

R.I.P. Potty…

The segment is pretty long and probably overstays its welcome. There’s some visual jokes, like a predictable bubble pipe joke, but little truly lands. I did like that Patchy flips his eyepatch up to read a letter, revealing a perfectly functional right eye, and dons a pair of glasses with the right lens blacked out. The setup for the introduction of the cartoon is created when a letter received by Patchy asks about Christmas in Bikini Bottom, prompting Patchy to tell the audience that the dwellers of Bikini Bottom didn’t always celebrate Christmas. Before we can get to the cartoon though, Potty has to consume the cookie dough, and explode. It leads to the very bizarre image of Potty’s dismembered head suspended in the air while Patchy looks on with amusement. Poor Potty, Patchy is the asshole in this segment and yet it’s the bird who gets blown up.

Well Sandy, if you’re going to live underwater you should expect to get wet now and again.

The actual cartoon begins with SpongeBob (Kenny) outside the home of Sandy Cheeks (Carolyn Lawrence). Sandy is a squirrel living in the outskirts of Bikini Bottom, and being a squirrel, she needs oxygen in gas form to breath, so she lives in a bubble. SpongeBob is looking to infiltrate the bubble to drop some karate moves on her. I assume this is supposed to be a good-natured prank as SpongeBob doesn’t have a mean pore in his body.

Turns out, oak trees make pretty nice Christmas trees!

As SpongeBob prepares to enter the bubble, he notices Sandy lighting up a tree with lights. Mistaking this for fire (he’s not very smart), SpongeBob grabs a bucket of water and races inside only to douse Sandy herself. She’s rightfully annoyed, but soon realizes that SpongeBob has never seen a Christmas tree before. Not only has he never seen one, he’s never even heard of Christmas before. We then receive a montage of Sandy explaining Christmas to SpongeBob. We don’t actually hear what she’s telling him and can only see her pantomiming various parts of her lesson, most of which appear to have nothing to do with a discussion on Christmas (that’s the joke).

I love Squidward’s energy here.

SpongeBob is quite taken with the whole concept of Christmas (and who wouldn’t be?) and races over to The Krusty Krab to inform the others what Sandy has taught him. There he regales Squidward (Rodger Bumpass), Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke), and Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown) a tale of Christmas with emphasis on Santa Claus. Mr. Krabs thinks it’s pretty great to hear about a guy who will give you whatever you want for Christmas and he’s eager to write a letter to the jolly, fat, man. Patrick is equally excited and sets out to write a letter to Santa as well.

SpongeBob is shockingly literate.

Squidward is the lone holdout. He finds the story preposterous and refuses to participate. SpongeBob tries to talk him into it, but he’s not coming around. All the while, Patrick keeps interrupting their conversation because his piece of paper has split in half. After he requests a new page a few times, we see what’s causing the problem. Patrick is sitting down with the pencil in between his legs pointing up. He then presses the paper down against the pencil in order to write on it. I’m now curious if he often has problems with the written word in other episodes.

Is he an inventor? I’m so confused by the existence of this competent machinery.

After the letter-writing is over, SpongeBob shows Patrick the machine he’s come up with to deliver the letters to Santa. They place each letter in a bottle and the machine fires it up to the surface of the ocean. It (shockingly) works just fine, and SpongeBob starts sending the letters to the surface. For his gift, he just wants to bring Christmas to Bikini Bottom, but the others want something more material. Patrick wishes to have more paper, and the message in his bottle is clearly ripped in half, while Mr. Krabs wants a pony…with saddlebags full of money. He gets it!

This is probably going to ruin the life of some castaway.

The other townsfolk get involved too and soon the surface of the water above Bikini Bottom is full of letters. Squidward is still holding out, and SpongeBob and Patrick get set to making the town look merry for Christmas via song. It’s called “The Very First Christmas,” and it’s plenty catchy. It’s not as good as “Don’t Be a Jerk,” but it’s fine. During the song, we see SpongeBob and Patrick chop down Squidward’s coral “tree” to set it up in town and decorate it with glowing jellyfish. Patrick is a natural fit for the top of the tree as the star.

Time for an image blitz because there’s a lot going on. First, SpongeBob and Patrick chopping down Squidward’s…tree?
At least they made it look nice.
Mr. Krabs coming in with the high notes.

When the song is over, Squidward is relieved that he can now peacefully go to bed. Only he can’t, because the entire town is outside his house to sing another song welcoming Santa. It’s basically “Jingle Bells” only with the words changed to reflect their Santa-eagerness. Time passes though, and as Squidward sleeps peacefully the folks outside sing all night to no avail. When the morning comes, everyone is still there, but there’s been no sign of Santa. The crowd angrily turns on SpongeBob, who shrinks before their gaze.

So who told them they should all stand outside and wait for Santa? Maybe that’s why things start to go wrong from here.
I admire that one fish in the front row still looking pretty hopeful.
This is how I felt right around noon of every Christmas Day for much of my youth.

Squidward rises to the misery, and is delighted! When the crowd leaves, he races outside to taunt SpongeBob about how wrong he was about Santa. SpongeBob doesn’t put up a defense and just stands there looking miserable. Squidward snaps a photo to remember this moment, and for some reason he gets off by putting his ass in SpongeBob’s face and slapping it. The cartoon literally tells us he’s being a jackass by superimposing an image of a donkey over him.

Squidward, feeling pretty god damn fabulous!
I don’t think SpongeBob can possibly be drawn any sadder.
Whoa Squidward! This is trending towards harassment here.
You’re lucky SpongeBob didn’t give you any advice on where to shove that thing. Don’t you feel like an ass now, Squidward?!

With Squidward’s antics mostly over, SpongeBob hands over the gift he made for him. SpongeBob was concerned that Squidward would be the only member of Bikini Bottom to not receive a present since he didn’t write a letter to Santa so he made him one instead. SpongeBob drags himself away leaving a stunned Squidward to stand there alone holding his gift. He opens it to find a clarinet that SpongeBob had made himself and instantly feels bad. Meanwhile, SpongeBob is miserable as he begins to take down the Christmas decorations he put on his own house as well as Squidward’s.

Raining underwater? It’s a Christmas miracle!
Looks like someone’s been hiding a secret Santa fetish…

Uncharacteristically, Squidward decides he needs to make things right. He goes home and puts on a Santa costume. I have no idea why he had such a costume in his house, but hey, it’s needed for the plot! He calls out to SpongeBob from his roof, before falling, leaving SpongeBob stunned with silent glee.

What’s with that look, Squidward? What did you think would happen?

Squidward gets SpongeBob to snap out of his trance long enough to tell him he’s here to thank SpongeBob for bringing Christmas to Bikini Bottom. He has to endure a pair of hugs from SpongeBob, but the exchange goes well for Squidward as SpongeBob heads back to his house. Feeling pretty good about himself, Squidward turns to enter his own home, but a little girl is standing in his way. She asks for her gift, and SpongeBob then reappears to encourage “Santa” to bestow a gift on this deserving young girl. Not knowing what else to do, Squidward ducks into his house for a present and ends up giving away a monkey wrench.

Squidward was not prepared for this contingency.
And he especially was not prepared for this!
Everyone seems to take their crappy gifts in stride, like this woman who wanted a new hairstyle, but instead was gifted a bowl of mashed potatoes.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t solve Santa Squid’s problem. A line of citizens has formed outside of his house and they all want a present. He goes in and out of his house getting items and gifting them to the people outside. They’re never what is asked of Santa, but the fish receiving them make do with what they have. They all seem to leave pretty happy, but they also leave behind an empty house for Squidward.

More or less how I feel every year when Christmas is over. Only there’s more stuff, a lot more stuff, in my house thanks to my kids.

With the crowd gone, Squidward removes his costume and wonders why in the world he just got rid of all of his personal belongings just to make SpongeBob happy. Oh Squidward, you just got caught by the Spirit of Christmas! A knock on the door comes from SpongeBob, who excitedly tells Squidward all about Santa, apparently oblivious to the fact that it was Squidward he encountered and not the real Santa. He mostly keeps repeating that Santa has a really big nose, though Squidward seems to take this all in stride.

Apparently someone was watching.

When SpongeBob finally returns home, Squidward notices a letter has been left outside his door. It’s from Santa! It thanks Squidward for bringing Christmas to Bikini Bottom, though makes no excuse for why Santa passed them by. Squidward can hardly believe it, but sure enough, up in the…sky?…is Santa in his sleigh. He’s portrayed with a live-action actor, played by Michael Patrick Bell, and he does a lot of “Ho ho ho’s” and waves. Squidward thinks he’s going insane and returns to his empty house. He breaks out his lone material possession, the clarinet SpongeBob gifted him, and seems to enjoy insanity. Above, we see Santa fly in front of a setting sun.

Santa, surprisingly being played by someone not named John Goodman or Ed Asner.
Squidward’s just taking it all in stride.
Hey look! A twist on the old moon shot!

At Patchy’s house, the special is over. He’s acting out some sea wreck thing and we interrupt him. He finds a present from a reassembled Potty has been left on his head, a nest full of wrapped eggs. Patchy doesn’t seem too interested and is more focused on the mistletoe hanging in his home. He stands under it hoping a woman will magically appear and give him a kiss, but instead Potty comes soaring in to do the honors. The episode ends with Patchy basically running from the sex-crazed puppet. The special ends on an external shot of Patchy’s ranch with a “Happy Holidays” message spelled over it.

A last bit of chaos at Patchy’s house lets us know we’re done.

The SpongeBob Christmas Special is a pretty satisfying piece of Christmas comedy. It starts with a solid premise, and then does a good job of playing with the viewer’s expectations. Squidward was setup to be a Scrooge, and I even found his choice of pajamas to be very Scrooge-like. I thought for sure we were going full parody when he went to sleep on Christmas Eve, but instead we got something very different. Squidward had to learn on his own that wishing misery upon others really doesn’t bring about good feelings in himself. It was sweet to see him affected by SpongeBob’s sadness, and he actually had to learn about Christmas the hard way when he gave all of his stuff away to maintain his ruse. I liked that he wasn’t rewarded with anything material in the end, he just did what was necessary (albeit, in a comedically exaggerated fashion), and found the true meaning of Christmas within himself.

When I saw this outfit I thought we were going full Scrooge. I’m glad I was mistaken.

The odd part of the special is the fact that Santa apparently planned all of this? Did he decide to fulfill SpongeBob’s wish through Squidward? Or maybe we’re supposed to assume that SpongeBob’s unorthodox way of getting everyone’s letters to Santa was simply a flop? SpongeBob did wait until the last minute to get those letters out and Santa is only capable of so many miracles.

The part of the special that didn’t add much for me was the live-action component. I just don’t find Patchy all that funny. I’m also not 7, so maybe it’s just not for me. The cartoon was entertaining, just that component felt a bit long. It doesn’t ruin it or anything, I could just do without.

The Christmas card ending; a tried and true classic.

This Christmas special isn’t as good as the one that follows, but it’s plenty entertaining for an annual viewing. And I feel confident in saying that anyone who likes SpongeBob probably enjoys this episode too. If you have cable, this one should be very to easy to view even this late in the game. It’s possibly available for streaming on Nickelodeon’s website, and it may even air today! It’s also available on various holiday themed DVDs and as part of the second season of the show. It’s also available digitally because it’s SpongeBob, one of the most accessible shows around. If you have yet to view it this year then find 20 minutes today and rectify that.

Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:

Dec. 24 – Silly Symphony – “The Night Before Christmas”

We have reached a day of great, holiday, release – Christmas Eve. And what better way to mark the occasion than with a holiday short titled The Night Before Christmas. A lot of cartoons have made use of this title, but today’s subject is the Silly Symphony short that falls under that heading. It felt…

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by Joe

Dec. 24 – Ren & Stimpy’s Crock O’ Christmas

In 2018, it feels like the novelty music genre is mostly dead. Back in the day when radio was the primary vehicle for delivering new music the novelty song had a place. Usually they would be part of commutes or morning shows when producers thought a laugh was in order. I know where I grew…

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by Joe

Dec. 24 – Chucklewood Critters: T’was the Day Before Christmas

In the 80s, if you had any connection to a successful animation production unit you could probably get a shot at creating your own series. Such was the case for former Hanna-Barbera animators Bill Hutten and Tony Love. They left that famous cartoon factory to create a series of holiday specials that would eventually lead…

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by Joe

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May 21, 2020

Rocko’s Modern Life – Season 3

By Joe
The third season of Rocko’s Modern Life originally aired from 1995-1996.

My rewatch of Rocko’s Modern Life really could not have gone better. I suppose it would be better if it wasn’t during a pandemic, but what can you do? The show has been a delight, and while I felt Season Two was pretty much on par with the first season, I think an argument can be made that Season Three is the best one so far.

In case you need a refresher, Rocko’s Modern Life is a cartoon created by Joe Murray that managed to amass a team of extremely talented people, many of whom went on to create more wonderful television. Rocko (Carlos Alazraqui) is a wallaby from Australia trying to navigate the 90s. Season Two saw him deal with thorny issues like immigration as well as some health problems. Money is often tight and his job as a clerk at a comic book store hardly feels secure, but somehow he gets by. The show is able to mix in real world problems with insane lunacy. The phrase “insane lunacy” sounds redundant, but for a show like Rocko’s Modern Life the redundancy feels very appropriate.

For an adult, few things are more relatable than car trouble.

For Season Three, the show tackled more real world issues and even managed to strengthen its continuity somewhat. The relationship between Rocko’s best friends, Heffer (Tom Kenny) and Filburt (Doug Lawrence) added a combative element to the mix to differentiate the two. They’re pals through and through, but the two get on each other’s nerves and they frequently fail to see eye to eye with Rocko often getting stuck in the middle. And for Filburt, Season Three was a big one because he gets engaged to longtime girlfriend Dr. Hutchison (Linda Wallem) in “The Big Question” which is immediately followed by “The Big Answer” where the two tie the knot. The Bigheads are still around as well and get their own shorts to shine and the show even tackles its first musical with the eco-friendly “Zanzibar.” That one, interestingly, is immediately followed by the show’s first dialogue-free short “Fatal Contraption.”

Season Three of the show never fails to be funny and the gags are really upped for this third season. The show’s first Halloween episode “Sugar Frosted Frights” has a lot of horror-themed gags and it’s paired with another spooky episode, “Ed is Dead.” One of the show’s funniest episodes is also present in this season in “Fish-N-Chumps.” The boys go fishing, only to find themselves in turn being fished, and all the while Filburt drives Heffer nuts with his enthusiasm for a new watch. Tom Kenny does some excellent ad-libbing with a captain character who features two peg legs, peg arms, and even peg eyes (Family Guy totally ripped him off)! My favorite might be “Fortune Cookie” though, if I have to pick a most funniest episode since it features the incredibly quotable fortune that Filburt receives, “Bad luck and extreme misfortune will infest your pathetic soul for all eternity.” There’s an episode where Bev (Charlie Adler) is accidentally given a new nose which reveals to her that her husband stinks, a crazed tour guide stalks Rocko and Heffer on a trip to France, and there’s even a famous nude scene in “Camera Shy.”

I don’t think there’s a more outrageous scene in the show’s history than this.

Rocko’s Modern Life is rarely short on laughs, but what sets it apart from its peers is the infusion of real world problems. None demonstrate that better than “The Big Answer” in which Filburt and Dr. Hutchison find out that planning a wedding is awful, especially when your guests don’t get along. It’s a great episode because in the end they realize it’s their day, no one else’s, and they do what works for them. “Old, Fogey, Froggie” deals with getting old, and uses Mr. Bighead (Adler) as a way of exploring that subject. It’s a subject few children can relate to, but one I sure can.

We get another look into what gets Bev’s motor running: novelty noses.

Season Three is also the season where the show got metta before that was even something in style. “Wacky Delly” is a two-parter all about making cartoons. For this one, Ralph Bighead (Joe Murray) returns after airing the final episode of his cartoon The Fatheads and is eager to explore other, more respected, avenues for his art. The problem is the network he works for basically owns him and he owes it another cartoon. Rather than make something his heart isn’t into, he cooks up a plan to have Rocko and his friends make the cartoon for him assuming it will be so terrible the network will terminate his contract. Instead, the show is a huge hit forcing Ralph to go to extreme measures to sabotage it. He has a reckoning eventually, realizing his cartoon making is totally legitimate art and can be quite satisfying. It certainly feels almost autobiographical on the part of Joe Murray as Rocko was never his first choice to bring to life and it’s an episode many cite as the show’s best.

If you ever wanted to know how to make a cartoon, “Wacky Delly” has you covered.

It was also quite interesting to see the show branch into activism for its third season. I mentioned it earlier, but “Zanzibar” is not only the show’s first musical, but it’s also very much about environmentalism. The subject came about naturally, according to Murray, and the musical format was settled on to make the message of the episode not feel so preachy. It’s almost painfully relevant today, but at least the songs are quite catchy and pleasant so it hopefully won’t bring you down too much.

A new hero for environmentalists every where: Captain Compost-Heap!

Over the years, Rocko’s Modern Life has become somewhat infamous for its humor aimed at adults. These are the gags that when looked back upon viewers are shocked they even made it into the show. While there was no major act of censorship after the fact with Season Three, there’s still plenty of humor that’s a little blue. There’s an episode titled “Schnit-heads,” which is a surprising title all by itself. It features Heffer getting caught up in a sausage cult. Sadly, the phrase “sausage fest” is never mentioned. “Fortune Cookie” also features a segment that took a long time to get approval from Nickelodeon in which Really Really Big Man’s nipples go berserk. It’s as ludicrous as it sounds. Plus the whole time he’s trying to talk a bird down from a statue who’s threatening to defecate upon it. And the show even features some death in the episode “Bye Bye Birdie” when Heffer kills Filburt’s bird, Turdy, by sitting on it. Rocko and Heffer then try to hide it from Filburt in a Weekend at Bernie’s manner. Possibly the best piece of awkward humor arises in “An Elk for Heffer” in which Heffer is informed he needs to bring an elk home for dinner as part of a growing-up ritual with his family’s wolf pack. Heffer then goes out and finds an elk for a date not realizing the whole intent of the arrangement is to actually hunt and kill an elk and provide dinner for his family.

Heffer thinks he’s found love, but turns out Elky here is actually a racist. Maybe the show should have let the wolves consume her…

As far as physical releases go, the third season is also superior to the previous ones since it contains better bonus material. While I was hoping for actual commentaries on the episodes, there are what the DVD refers to as selected scene commentaries. It’s a misleading label as the feature is really just Joe Murray going over his thoughts and feelings on the third season of the show. He covers a lot of ground in the short run time and it’s definitely worth a watch and is more informative than the character portraits from the Season Two set. Again, it’s not what I was hoping for, but I did enjoy it.

The third season of Rocko’s Modern Life is simply the show at its best. I continue to be charmed and amazed by the quality and it truly is a show that can be enjoyed by all ages. It’s been a real hit in my house where I’ll watch it with my young kids and even watch it with my wife after they go to bed. I don’t know what the fourth season can do to top this one, but I look forward to seeing how it tries.

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May 8, 2020

Rocko’s Modern Life – Season Two

By Joe

rocko_season2

The second season of Rocko’s Modern Life premiered on September 25, 1994.

A few weeks ago I wrote about my reintroduction to Rocko’s Modern Life via the show’s first season. Rocko’s Modern Life was a favorite of mine as a kid, and if you had asked me to rank the Nicktoons back then it would have gone something like this:  The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rocko’s Modern Life, followed by who cares? Those two cartoons were so far above the others that they didn’t feel worth mentioning. Sure, Rugrats and Doug were fine for what they were, but they weren’t appointment viewing for me. And after a few years, none of them were as I felt I had aged out of them. I was a young, dumb, kid though and upon revisiting such works I’ve come to find that, if anything, I’ve aged into a show like Rocko’s Modern Life.

What separated Rocko’s Modern Life from the other shows was that emphasis on the mundanity of life itself. Rocko was challenged by simple tasks such as laundry, household cleaning, commuting, work, and all of those others things we as adults have to deal with that we really take for granted as children. Rocko’s difficulties encountered with these tasks are obviously exaggerated for comedic effect, but like all good comedy there is still an element of truth to all of it making the show arguably more relatable for an adult than it is a child.

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Like Season One, Season Two of Rocko’s Modern Life is surprisingly topical in 2020.

When it came to Season One of the show, I was delighted by the humor aimed at adults. I remembered the Milk-O-Matic gag as a kid in which Heffer, a steer, is masturbated by a mechanical milking machine and knew there was humor in this show that really only older kids and adults would understand. That type of humor is more of a shocking variety of humor, what I had forgotten is the more nuanced approach such as the episode where neighbor Bev Bighead tries to seduce Rocko because her husband doesn’t make her feel attractive. It’s a pretty adult concept to try to base a cartoon intended for children around, and it’s even affecting in turning Mrs. Bighead into a sympathetic figure. And yes, there’s still plenty of physical comedy in that episode and all of them.

As I approached Season Two of the show, I was hoping for more of that style of story-telling:  mature in concept, but accessible for all via the physical comedy. And for the most part, Season Two really delivers. It starts off with a heavy hitter in the two-part “I Have No Son” in which we learn the Bigheads have an estranged son named Ralph (Joe Murray) who long ago disappointed his father by not accepting a job at Conglom-O where Ed worked. A father being so ashamed and disappointed of his son that it causes him to disown him is a pretty heavy subject for the show to tackle because it’s also a very real thing that happens. Ed looks down on Ralph for his wanting to be a cartoonist, but you can substitute that with pretty much anything and the episode would still work. And even though Ralph has found tremendous success with his cartoon The Fatheads (which is clearly inspired by his parents), he still hasn’t earned his father’s approval.

the_bigheads_reunited

The story of Ralph Bighead kicks off the second season.

The premiere is a pretty weighty episode to kick things off, but it manages to handle the delicate material with the show’s usual brand of humor. It does struggle a bit to fit it all into one episode and the resolution feels a bit rushed, but it’s still quite the achievement. The rest of the season will balance the absurd wackiness of Rocko’s world with actual real world issues and problems. Bev Bighead has to break the glass ceiling, so to speak, and go to work in one episode and another deals with Rocko having to thwart immigration officials who want him deported for an expired green card. That episode might actually hit too close to home for some given the current climate surrounding immigration in the US. A particularly heartfelt episode is “Tickled Pinky” in which Rocko deals with the fear of surgery when he finds out he needs to have his appendix removed. It turns into a story where Rocko meets a personified version of his appendix, named Pinky, via a dream. Rocko, in a bid to cheer up Pinky since he’s essentially about to die, takes Pinky out to essentially check off a bucket list of experiences for Pinky to enjoy before his time is up. It’s surprisingly sweet and it left me wishing I had thought of this episode when my own little boy had to have his tonsils removed.

Season Two is also not without its dose of more crass humor. The episode “Born to Spawn” basically deals with Filbert’s (Mr. Lawrence) desire to mate, though that part of it isn’t spelled out. It’s pretty funny though with that context in the back of your mind. In “Hut, Sut, Raw” Rocko, Heffer (Tom Kenny), and Filbert go camping and leave the confines of a modern camp ground to rough it in the woods. The DVD is censored to remove a scene where Rocko picks berries off of a bush, only to have a bear scream and run out from behind it implying that Rocko just picked one the bear’s “berries.” The final cartoon, “Eyes Capades,” revisits the old white lie of Rocko’s eyesight going bad due to too much “jacking.” In the context of the episode, the jacking is Rocko practicing for a jackhammer competition that’s basically figure skating on a jackhammer, but it’s obvious the episode is playing off the notion that masturbation in a young boy can cause blindness.

hqdefault-18

This is the season that features the Christmas episode basically making this a “must buy” for Christmas nerds like me.

A welcomed trend established by Season Two is that this show, unlike many other cartoons, actually has some semblance of continuity. Past episodes are referenced and new characters like Ralph will show up in later episodes at peace with his parents. The cartoon “Short Story” contains the most references when Really Really Big Man details Rocko’s good deeds and accomplishments for him in a bid to build him up. The episode “Rocko’s Modern Christmas” (which has been featured during The Christmas Spot) is the first episode to really bring the whole cast together when Rocko attempts to throw a party that everyone in town wishes to attend. It’s really satisfying to see the writers opening up the world of O-Town and incorporating a lot of these side characters.

In terms of missteps, there are few. The animation is as good, if not better, than the first season and the performances by the voice actors are all tremendous. Especially considering how much screaming is sometimes required of them. There are three oversized episodes in this season, which are episodes that dedicate both halves to one story and they are:  “I Have No Son, “Rocko’s Modern Christmas,” and “Cruisin’.” Of the three, only “Cruisin'” felt like it didn’t really need the extra time. It’s a bit of a weird episode in which Rocko and Heffer take Heffer’s grandfather on a cruise for old people (or rather, they got stuck on the boat by accident) and the ship enters the Bermuda Triangle making all of the old people young and the two young people old. It gives Grandpa a do-over with an old flame, a relatable and pretty adult plot, but one that struggles to remain interesting.

b-52s

Kate Pierson (left) and Fred Schneider (second from left) of the B-52’s were brought in to re-do the theme song. Their version would remain for the rest of the show’s run.

In terms of personnel, much of the folks involved with the first season returned for the second. Stephen Hillenburg was around to oversee everything as showrunner and creator Joe Murray still received several writing credits and remained involved. Doug Lawrence, also known as Mr. Lawrence, stepped back from directing, but still has a few writing credits. Some of the newcomers include directors Alan Smart, Pete Michels, and Howy Parkins. All would make future contributuons at Nickelodeon while Michels would go on to direct several episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy. Voice of Rocko, Carlos Alazraqui, even received a writing credit for “Gutter Balls,” one of two writing credits he’d receive on the show. Considering that episode has four credited writers, I’m assuming he must had ad-libbed something that was considered large enough to warrant a credit. The only major change between seasons is the theme song which was reworked by Pat Irwin and re-recorded by Kate Pierson and Fred Schneider of the B-52’s. It’s still fine, though I miss the swank of the first season’s theme.

rocko_pilot

The pilot of the show is contained on this set and is notable for featuring a yellow Rocko.

The DVD release of the first season of Rocko’s Modern Life had the dubious honor of not containing any bonus features. Joe Murray was quite willing to contribute to these releases and for Season Two Nickelodeon at least made some effort to add a little extra, though not much. The original pilot of the show “Trash-O-Madness” is contained here. It’s not much different from the episode that made it to air, but it’s cool to see the original version of the show. There’s also a collection of segments hosted by Murray where he shares the ideas behind the show’s core characters while also demonstrating how they’re drawn. He doesn’t reveal any bombshells or anything, but it’s worth a look. That’s, unfortunately, all that there is for bonus material which means there’s no commentaries and no options to view the episodes uncensored.

Rocko’s Modern Life is a great cartoon series and I’m happy to say the second season is just as good as the first. The show definitely embodies that 90’s spirit of being a bit manic, loud, and certainly gross, but it also includes a surprising amount of heart and relatability as well. In some ways, it’s the perfect children’s cartoon because there’s plenty here to entertain a 7 year old while also keeping mom and dad engaged. And pretty much all are guaranteed to find something to laugh at as well, or be charmed by, or both! I’ve enjoyed it enough that I definitely intend to binge Season Three and report back here on how well I think it compares with the first two seasons, so stay tuned!

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April 17, 2020

Rocko’s Modern Life – Season One

By Joe

rocko_season_oneThe late 80s and early 90s were such a fun time for cartoons. Television was rapidly expanding and there was huge demand for content for both children and adults. People who had grown up on Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry were also making the cartoons and wanted to do better than what had become the standard for television animation. Disney got the ball rolling by injecting more money into the animation and overall production for its shows. In the process, the company proved that it wasn’t as big a risk as some thought to go straight for a syndicated order of episodes because there was always room for more cartoons on television. Other artists also started getting opportunities to create better and more diverse cartoons. These were actually funny and largely felt like a response to the very dry and formulaic works put out by Hanna Barbera and Dic.

Nickelodeon was one of the first cable networks to really go after children. It was somewhat of a contrast to its sister channel, MTV, which was going for a teen and young adult audience with the obvious focus being music. MTV grew more experimental as the years went on though and it even started airing animation. Up until that point, Nickelodeon was largely a network consisting of low budget live-action programs like You Can’t Do That on Television as well as re-runs of old general audience programming (Dennis the Menace, Flipper, etc.) with classic sitcoms at night. The only cartoons really being shown were Looney Tunes and some children’s animation the network licensed such as The Little Koala and David the Gnome. Parent company Viacom was seeing the success the big networks were having with exclusive children’s content and also with the stuff being made for MTV and decided it was time for Nickelodeon to get into the cartoon business.

games_animation

Games Animation was created so that Nickelodeon could keep production of its Nicktoons in-house.

The Nicktoons were born of this creative desire. The network sought upstart creators and basically gave them free reign to create a show that Nickelodeon would air as part of a block on Sunday morning. Saturday morning was the domain of the broadcast networks, but Sunday was essentially ripe for the taking especially as fewer and fewer families were spending the morning at church. The block launched in August of 1991 with three brand new cartoons:  Doug, Rugrats, and The Ren and Stimpy Show. The construction of the block is interesting in that it began with a very grounded show about a middle-school aged kid in Doug, then went to a more imaginative show where babies go on adventures largely created in their own head, to the surreal and more classically constructed comedy show with Ren and Stimpy. The block was a huge success virtually guaranteeing future Nicktoons. It’s debatable which was more impactful, Rugrats or The Ren and Stimpy Show, but the latter definitely seemed to be the most influential on subsequent Nicktoons. Problems with that show also caused Nickelodeon to go ahead and found its own animation studio:  Games Animation.

rock_cast

The main cast of the show (left to right): Rocko, Spunky, Heffer, Bev Bighead, Filburt, Ed Bighead.

The first show launched by Games Animation was the Joe Murray created Rocko’s Modern Life. Premiering in the late summer of 1993, Rocko’s Modern Life was the fourth Nicktoon and first cartoon to be added to the lineup since its premiere two years earlier. It was a pretty big deal to have a new Nicktoon, and it also completed the Sunday block making it an even two hours. Joe Murray had wanted to make an independent film called My Dog Zero and only when Nick passed on that did he turn to Rocko. Rocko was originally conceived as a comic, but Murray wasn’t able to find anyone willing to publish it when peddling it around in the late 80s. He pitched the concept to Nick when it passed on My Dog Zero expecting them to pass, but hoping they’d at least give him some money for a pilot that he could put towards his passion project, My Dog Zero. Nickelodeon ended up not only commissioning a pilot, but also a 13 season order. After largely animating the pilot himself (“Trash-O-Madness”), Murray found himself in the unfamiliar role of a TV creator and director with a staff of over 200 people split between the US and Asia.

rocko_brain

Plenty of classic animation gags are relied upon such as Rocko’s brain constantly jumping out of his head when he screams.

Rocko’s Modern Life would run for 4 seasons totaling 52 episodes (100 segments). During its run it helped further the careers of some pretty important people. It basically launched the career of voice actor Carlos Alazraqui (Rocko, Spunky) who went on to star in other Nicktoons as well as many Cartoon Network originals. Charlie Adler was already a name familiar to cartoon fans at the time, but his portrayal of the husband and wife duo Ed and Bev Bighead really showcased his talents as he often would record the duo’s interactions with each other in one take. It’s hard to imagine him being entrusted to perform the roles of Cow and Chicken for the show Cow and Chicken without the Bigheads. Tom Kenny was also cast as Heffer Wolfe and he is likely best known now as the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants. And it isn’t just Kenny who went on to star there, the first director hired by Murray for the show was the late Stephen Hillenburg who went on to create the aforementioned SpongeBob SquarePants.

rocko_sucker

Many episodes contain Rocko tackling a common task only with disastrous results.

The first season of Rocko’s Modern Life consists of 26 segments spread across 13 episodes. In this current climate of increased television time, I decided to take a trip down memory lane with Rocko and his buddies. A local retailer, Bull Moose, specializes in media such as music, games, and movies and I sometimes take a stroll through its retail location in nearby Salem, New Hampshire. It’s a great store that fills a niche that has been all but abandoned by most retailers. The current COVID-19 pandemic has shuttered all such spaces, but Bull Moose continues to operate as an online space. More importantly, the company continues to pay all of its employees which is an incredibly noble gesture and one that should be emulated by other companies. I wanted to show my appreciation for that by spending some money at the website, which is how I ended up with the complete Rocko’s Modern Life collection. In truth, this was a long time coming as I wanted to reconnect with the show. I see it sometimes on one of Nickelodeon’s channels, but the network seems to re-air a lot of the same episodes over and over. I also was originally holding off on buying this series as I hoped an uncensored version would arrive some day, but I have since given up on that.

Which is a good thing, because my re-watch of the first season could not have gone much better. Rocko’s Modern Life is a show about a wallaby named Rocko who has recently set out on his own in a 90s world. He’s an immigrant from Australia living in the US in the fictional town of O-Town, basically an every town USA concept. The show does not expressly state how long he’s been in the US, but long enough to have formed close bonds with friends Heffer and Filburt (Mr. Lawrence). Rocko lives alone in a small house with his happy, but dim-witted, dog Spunky. He works as a clerk at a comic book shop and he’s basically just struggling to get by. Many episodes focus on the mundane, like taking out the garbage or doing the laundry, but things go wrong with Rocko often remarking “[Blank] Day is a very dangerous day.” Episodes of the show are mostly stand-alone, but there is some semblance of continuity from one episode to another. We see Rocko get fired from one job and hired at a new one, characters reference past experiences, and eventually we’ll even see Filburt enter into a relationship with another character.

love_spanked

Each episode is introduced with a hand-painted title card.

As a children’s show, Rocko’s Modern Life packs enough laughs to satisfy most kids, especially early 90s kids who had spent the past two years with Ren and Stimpy. It’s a disservice to call Rocko’s Modern Life a Ren and Stimpy clone, but both do love to indulge in gross humor. There’s lots of boogers, drool, farts, and vomit gags in this cartoon. Rocko and his friends are also prone to screaming with exaggerated results such as eyes popping out and brains bursting out of a skull. It’s a visual treat for those who enjoy physical comedy in their cartoons, especially cartoons that really take advantage of what the medium can do. It also allows the show to go to wild locations with Heffer spending an episode in “Heck” while Rocko gets to visit many different locations such as the beach, the movies, a plane, and so on. The show also possesses some surreal qualities such as the episode “Flu-In-U-Enza” where Rocko as a fever dream in which his vomit comes to life to coach him through his illness. Most of the world is also slanted with lines going to great lengths to not meet up. It’s a very stylized show, with good animation and colors.

bev_seduction

Bev Bighead is one of the break-out stars in Season One. Her attempts to seduce Rocko in “Leap Frogs” is a real highlight of the first season.

Where Rocko really separated itself from its peers though is in its depiction of everyday life. Rocko being short on money and newly set free from adolescence makes the show extremely relatable for anyone in a similar situation or who has gone through it. Stretching a paycheck, managing responsibilities, taking care of yourself – these are things many of us only really become attuned to when we’re out on our own. Most can probably recall a gag or two from this show that went over their head at the time, only to have it make sense later on. Some of the plots are also very adult in nature with perhaps the best example being “Leap Frogs” in which Bev Bighead feels unwanted by her husband. It’s almost like a Simpsons plot or maybe even a sitcom as Bev tries to then make herself attractive to Rocko in hopes of making her husband jealous. It’s a really fun and interesting episode that was eventually deemed too adult and was pulled from Nickelodeon’s regular rotation.

Rocko’s Modern Life is profoundly funny in its writing, acting, and direction, but it also has some value to impart on its audience beyond that. It’s never preachy, and it also never feels like an arbitrary quota for educational content was in play, but nevertheless some episodes are beneficial for its younger audience in ways beyond mere entertainment. “Who’s For Dinner?” deals with adoption and the emotions one goes through when they first discover they’re an adopted child. Rocko is also a role model character for just how loyal and unfailingly kind he can be. He is at times meek to a fault, but learns to stand up for himself when the world really tries to screw him over. He is patient towards buddy Heffer, who in turn is a harmful glutton mostly oblivious to how harmful his actions are for Rocko. He does have his own reckoning in “To Heck and Back,” though his behavior doesn’t really change much following the episode.

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Sadly, we’ve been deprived of Heffer’s romantic tryst with a milking machine. The full clip can be easily found on the Internet, but it would have been great to have the original toon restored.

As mention previously, there is some censorship when it comes to Rocko’s Modern Life. Often, the show got away with a lot and the episodes made it to air without controversy, only to be edited later. That’s true with the episode “The Good, The Bad, and The Wallaby” where a segment involving Heffer, a male, getting hooked up to a milking machine has been removed. My understanding is the segment wasn’t restored largely because it can’t be cheaply. When these shows were edited for air, no one had the foresight to think money could be made down the road so they just edited the masters and basically lost the footage forever. The episode was released on VHS unedited so they could have transferred it off of that if they were willing, but that didn’t happen. Future edits would be made to the show, such as rebranding the restaurant The Chokey Chicken as The Chewy Chicken, but Nickelodeon didn’t have anyone go back and remove the offending name from prior seasons.

The DVD release of Rocko’s Modern Life – Season One is bare bones. It was originally released by Shout! Factory on two discs with no bonus features. It’s also arranged in airdate order, which is not the preferred order to watch the episodes. The compilation release put out in 2018 containing the whole series is the same. It would have been fun to hear some commentary tracks by Joe Murray and some of the other creative people involved, but oh well. The episodes really stand on their own though, and Season One is the only season to feature the original theme song which I prefer to the one performed by the B-52’s in the subsequent seasons. Season One is also incredibly strong and it might be my favorite season of the show, but that remains to be seen as I work my way through the show. As a kid, The Ren and Stimpy Show was always my favorite of the Nicktoons, but as I get older I find Rocko’s Modern Life has taken over that throne. It’s funny, manic, and very 90s in its style and presentation, but also surprisingly relatable. I’ve had a hard time shutting it off and it’s been a real crowd pleaser in my home of four. Hopefully my enthusiasm continues and I come back and tell you how much I loved Season Two and beyond.

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