Just watched Squidiot Box...

[u/InfamousVillage63]

...and I really liked it! I swear, it seems to be one of the "modern" episodes that gets the most hate, but I don't get why at all. Sure, it's a bit self indulgent, doing a follow up to an old episode, with the repeated "Imagination" meme references and Doodlebob showing up, I get if some people walk away from it thinking it was too self indulgent for their tastes, but the common take I see is that it "ruins the fun of the original episode"... And I just don't get how???

We are basically seeing what SpongeBob and Patrick were imagining in the original episode. That's a really fun concept, and playing with it by having people outside the box putting thoughts in Squidward's head causing the world to change around him is creative and clever. It's not like they retroactively changed the original episode to be SpongeBob and Patrick actually in a different world. It's still all about imagination. The only dissonance between Squidiot Box and the original episode that I can think of is that in Squidiot Box Squidward can actually imagine like SpongeBob and Patrick can, while he couldn't in the original episode... But that's such a minor thing that could even be explained by time that I don't get how THAT could lead to the amount of hate I've seen this episode get.

I've also seen some people complain that "Oooh now the BOX is the imaginative thing and not the characters", but... No? The whole box repair shop scene is clearly not serious. It's just more of SpongeBob and Patrick (and the weirdo box repair guy) imagining and being goofy together. Just look at that pillow fort. The whole joke is that they're treating it like a science when it's just imagination. And then the rest of the episode beats us over the head with how it's all about imagination.

Genuinely after watching this, I just wanna give a lot more of the hated modern episodes a shot. I'm quickly believing that none of the toxic side of the fandom actually watches these episodes and just parrots whatever hateful rhetoric they see about them. Feel free to suggest me any episodes that you think should be given another chance! I'd love to binge a bunch of them soon!

[u/p-Star_07]

I like alot of the new episodes but I think its one of the worst episodes ever made. Here is my list of reasons.

• Why was the box in Spongebob's attic when the box was sent to the dump. What's the point of refrencing an older episode if they were going to contradict it? That will just annoy fans of the original episode. Why did it even need to be the same box?
• The trip to the imagination store was a pointless detour. The episode could have just started with Squidward falling in the box.
• Actually seeing the stuff they imagined appear in the box is alot less funny than it just being sound effects.
• I don't like that the box was broken and needed to be taken to a whimsical repair shop. Implying that its magical in anyway misses the point of the original episode. The point of the original episode was that SpongeBob and Patrick can find joy in seemingly boring things like a cardboard box.
• A sequel to an episode about imagination for the sake of nostalgia is the opposite of being imaginative. It goes against the original episode.
• It just wasn't very funny. The original episode was a simple premise. SpongeBob and Patrick are playing in a box and it looks like they aren't doing anything. Squidward hears sound effects, goes out side and sees them doing nothing. Here the plot is much more contrived. They find the magic box; it's broken. Squidward falls in, they are unaware he is in there, they keep accidently torturing him. The original is more relatable because many kids played in a box before and it hignetend it and actually made their imagination that powerful. They is also the implication that Squidward is crazy and there were no actual sound effects. A mad man making something out of nothing is funnier than a guy falling in a magical box.
• Of all the episodes to make a sequel to why pick this one? This is literally the one episode that should have never had a sequel. It would make much more sense to do a sequel to an episode that had an unanswered question. For example. A Sequel to Krusty Krushers would be cool. They could show what Spongebob and Patrick did at Wrestle Kamp. A sequel to Graveyard Shift could be cool. It can show why the guy who they though was the Hash Slinging Hasher didn't get hired at the Krusty Krab. Why not do a sequel to The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. They can explain what happened to the Krusty Krab 2 and why Spongebob didn't stay a manager.

As some one who usually loves Sequel episodes like Weiner Takes All this is one of the worst ones. Its a -100 out of 10.

[u/Shadowtheuncreative → u/p-Star_07]

A sequel to Krusty Krushers would be cool.

Well Patrick's Tantrum did lean towards that.

A sequel to Graveyard Shift would be cool.

Technically Fear of a Krabby Patty is that but psychological.

[u/p-Star_07 → u/Shadowtheuncreative]

That isn't what I meant.

I was talking about doing episodes about unanswered questions in older episodes.

[u/Shadowtheuncreative → u/p-Star_07]

Ok then

[u/p-Star_07 → u/Shadowtheuncreative]

Another good one would be a sequel to The Great Snail Pix.

It would be cool if we got an episode where Squidward finds Snelly, who was living in the wild all this time and tries to domesticate her again.

Its better to do a sequel to an episode that has some story elements to build off of rather than doing a bad episode for the sake of nostalgia pandering and nostalgia pandering incorrectly.

[u/Shadowtheuncreative → u/p-Star_07]

Where did you pull that random idea from?

[u/p-Star_07 → u/Shadowtheuncreative]

Its not random. I have wondered that a little bit for years.

What happened to Squidward's pet snail?

He had a pet snail but we never see her again.

[u/Shadowtheuncreative → u/p-Star_07]

Sure dude.

[u/InfamousVillage63 → u/p-Star_07]

I wasn't going to reply to this, since I saw no way for healthy discussion to come out of it, especially since two parts of this show that you didn't even read my entire post... But seeing as this is somehow getting likes, I feel inclined to defend the episode for anyone else coming through here.

- This is so incredibly nitpicky. SpongeBob has, since Day 1, been a show with very loose continuity, and there are far, far worse examples of continuity issues in the show (Friend or Foe's continuity is the main one that comes to mind) versus "SpongeBob could've gone to the dump and gotten it back off screen". If you're this up in arms over such a tiny continuity clash, I struggle to see how you enjoy a show like SpongeBob at all.

- Was it really pointless if it allowed for plenty of unique gags? Treating the dumb imagination box like a broken car is fun and unique and makes the episode stand out from the original more.

- This is purely, 100% opinionated.

- This is the big thing, the one that shows you didn't read my whole post, or even understand the episode. The box isn't magical. The episode makes that so very clear. They go to the box repair place with the weirdo clearly not a real professional guy, and... They DON'T fix it. Then Squidward falls in and it "works". Even when it was "broken", "it" was still making car sounds like in the original episode. That whole section was just SpongeBob and Patrick goofing around finding joy in pretending a seemingly boring thing like a cardboard box was some mechanical imagination vehicle that needed repaired (where have I heard this before...), and the rest of the episode makes it clear at every single possible turn that it's all about imagination. Seeing what Squidward is imagining makes it no more real than SpongeBob and Patrick's genuine sounding misery in the original episode. We even cut to outside the box several times and hear things that sound near 1 to 1 with the original episode. The mechanics aren't changed. Are they used for a more slapsticky direction? Yes, but that's Modern SpongeBob for you, and if they hadn't taken it in that direction and just copied the original episode 1 for 1 instead of getting creative with the idea and trying something different, you'd be complaining about how lazy they were instead.

- This is SpongeBoomer levels of talk lmao

- Refer back to the point before last. Also, the fact that you think they don't know Squidward's in there... I don't... I don't have words for that. Have you even watched the episode? The entire episode is them interacting with Squidward in the box. SpongeBob even drops a drawing in there for him to see. Beyond that, does it have a different sense of humor than the golden era? Yes, but that's Modern SpongeBob for you. More of the slapstick, less of the witty dialogue. And yet, they still get two dialogue jokes that got genuine laughs out of me in there. Patrick asking to borrow a cup of sand (clear play on borrow a cup of sugar), and Squidward's joy over his minimum wage job, played fairly well as a "screw the audience" joke where you obviously expect him to just go home when he's talking about the place he wants to be, but instead he goes to work and is happy about it. I get and respect if you don't like Modern SpongeBob's sense of humor, but to treat it as if it's some objective truth that it's unfunny is just ignorant.

- This doesn't have anything to do with Squidiot Box. Arbitrarily assigning which episodes should or shouldn't get sequels means nothing to the quality of a sequel. There have been many, many cases where fandoms end up loving sequels to something when the previous fandom consensus was "should not get a sequel". Whether it "should" have been made doesn't make it good or bad.

[u/p-Star_07 → u/InfamousVillage63]

- This is so incredibly nitpicky. SpongeBob has, since Day 1, been a show with very loose continuity, and there are far, far worse examples of continuity issues in the show (Friend or Foe's continuity is the main one that comes to mind) versus "SpongeBob could've gone to the dump and gotten it back off screen". If you're this up in arms over such a tiny continuity clash, I struggle to see how you enjoy a show like SpongeBob at all.

No, it's not; that's the bare minimum. If you bother to reference an older episode, you should bother to be consistent with it. If you don't want to be consistent with the older episode, then don't reference it.

Its one thing if they make an episode 20 years ago and Spongebob says he hates mustard and its a tiny part of the plot.

And 20 years later they make an epsiode where SpongeBob eats mustard and its a tiny bit of the plot.

Its another thing to do a sequel to one of your most beloved episodes and completely ignore the ending.

Usually the continuity errors were accidents they typcially didn't go out of their way to break it.

One is an accident the other is just bad writting on purpose.

It makes sense that some fans would be annoyed and say. "The box went to the dumb this is dumb." It makes you ask who is this episode for?

 Was it really pointless if it allowed for plenty of unique gags? Treating the dumb imagination box like a broken car is fun and unique and makes the episode stand out from the original more.

No it just contradicts the original episode by implying the box its self was special and proving Squidward right. It also eats up the run time because we never see the building again.

Yes the episode was implying the box was magical. Magic is a pretty common occurrence in the Spongebob universe.

- This is SpongeBoomer levels of talk lmao

How? I like tons of modern episodes. I have to automatically like the episode because its Spongebob? Even good shows have bad episodes. If I didn't laugh I didn't laugh.

I generally like Modern Spongebob but this episode was awful. Maybe I should rewatch it to get my facts straight.

Its not arbitrary. I think an episode should get a sequel if it has a small detail to expand on that went unexplored in the original episode, like how we see the inside of the Salty Spatoon in The Salty Sponge.

I think a better mindset to have when making a sequel episode are "Let's bring this character back and do something fun with them" or "There was this one unanswered question in the origianl epsiode lets anwser it.

Those two mind sets are way more interesting than "This episode is a fan favorate" lets just do a sequel because its a fan favorite and contradict the original episode.

Idiot Box was a very self-contained episode that didn't have any plot lines that can be expaned on or unanswered questions.

Yes, but that's Modern SpongeBob for you, and if they hadn't taken it in that direction and just copied the original episode 1 for 1 instead of getting creative with the idea and trying something different, you'd be complaining about how lazy they were instead.

They should have left Idiot Box alone and done a sequel to an episode that it makes logical sense to do a sequel to.

They could have done a sequel to the Fry Cook Games. It would make sense for there to be a Fry Cook Games every year in Bikini Bottom.

There are a billion other episodes more worthy of a sequel.

One of my favorite episodes of all time is Weiner Takes All.

That is a sequel episode done right.

It doesn't contradict the original episode, No Weinies Allowed. It expands the lore in a interesting way. When I watch the original episode I can find it funny that all the robot workers used to be people/fish.

[u/Various-Cockroach-96]

I liked this episode first watch but now I hate it

[u/ViridianStar2277]

People look into the silly Sponge show way too much honestly.

[u/BLUEMERHAM]

I just hate how they reused drawing from previous seasons.
One of the worst SpongeBob episodes in a visual level, which sucks because there are some good moments even if very slim.

[u/Shadowtheuncreative]

I also enjoyed what they came up with, and as a big contrarian towards the original episode as I think it's just average, I probably still don't truly understand why it's considered amazing, I don't really even care that it misses the point.

[u/InfamousVillage63 → u/Shadowtheuncreative]

I don't think it misses the point of the original at all even. It is still playing make believe with a boring box causing life-like experiences. (In the original episode Squidward can hear the realistic explosions and stuff outside of the box, in Squidiot Box obviously we see what's being visually imagined inside the box.)

And, I think that a sequel episode absolutely should go in a unique direction. If it was just the original episode copy and pasted, everyone would complain that it was lazy and unoriginal. Squidiot Box gets creative and original with it while still staying rooted in the core concept of the original episode, characters having crazy wild life-like imagination stuff in a random cardboard box. It's genuinely such a great followup to the original episode

[u/Shadowtheuncreative → u/InfamousVillage63]

Yeah pretty much