YMMV / SpongeBob SquarePants S 3 E 11 "Party Pooper Pants"

• Accidental Innuendo: The newspaper comic reading SpongeBob tells at the party ("panel one: we see Roxy Wisenheimer with some sort of rake. Wait, I can't read from this!"), which is followed by the guests loudly cheering (until becoming silent when SpongeBob reveals that it's just because it's from yesterday's paper) can be read as the comic seemingly being a Double Entendre about hoes, with the audience catching on and cheering when SpongeBob realizes this.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: While SpongeBob was indeed being bossy at his party, it was only because the party planner guide said that "an unsupervised party can lead to disaster". Knowing SpongeBob's absolute willingness to follow orders, as well as his tendency to be Literal-Minded, SpongeBob comes off as more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist than a Jerkass.
• Alternative Joke Interpretation: Was the fish SpongeBob went to kindergarten with moving away again him pulling a Screw This, I'm Outta Here, or did he actually plan on going to SpongeBob's party and just so happened to live a little too far away?
• Ass Pull: SpongeBob had a key under the mat the entire time? Him just forgetting this fact could be forgiven if not for the fact that said mat was clearly not there when SpongeBob was stranded outside and was only shown to joke about SpongeBob's easy pass inside.
• Awesome Music:
  • "The Humpback Hop" is Theo Mondle's musical introduction to the show, and is a stellar dance track that will make listeners want to dance like Patrick. While the song was unfortunately lost for 20 years, the full song eventually was discovered and uploaded in 2023.
  • No matter what Patchy thinks of it, "Bird Brains" is an absolutely rocking track.
  • "Underwater Sun" is surprisingly good for a song being performed by birds.
• Demographically Inappropriate Humour: When SpongeBob accidentally gets his fingers chopped off and starts screaming, Larry overhears the screaming and says, "Hey, this party's finally starting to pick up!"
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • Some fans of the show see this as the first example of the show padding what should've been a regular 11 minute episode into a 22 minute special. The fact that SpongeBob was acting out of character as a complete control freak (with him doing things like sabotaging Squidward's cable, thus forcing him to come to his party) didn't help matters.
  • The ending of the episode has Spongebob arrested for not inviting the cops to the party. This was done to ensure Spongebob would have no way to enter his house, and the party would be a success. He also cut Squidward's cable so he'd be forced to come to the party, so they come off as Right for the Wrong Reasons. SpongeBob was released the next morning, which is proportional to that offense. Later seasons would have various characters (usually Squidward or Mrs. Puff) being arrested for outrageously long periods of time whether or not they actually committed a crime.
• Jerkass Woobie: SpongeBob, despite acting so strict and rigid, only wanted to host what he believed to be a good party, and as a result, he's locked out of his own house, his fingers are accidentally chopped off, and he's arrested for the extremely petty reason of not inviting the cops, and spends all night in prison... in a bunny outfit.
• Karmic Overkill: SpongeBob may have deserved some form of punishment for his bossy behavior, but being arrested for no good reason was still a tad extreme.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Considering how rare it is for all the characters (both major and minor ones) to be featured together in an episode, this story would have been a lot more interesting if it focused more on their interaction and getting up to shenanigans at the party. But instead, the audience gets locked out of this event along with SpongeBob himself.

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