Crosses the Line Twice: When SpongeBob still thinks all the hooks are a carnival, he asks where everyone else is. Patrick nonchalantly comments that there was one kid there earlier, cut to an empty pair of shoes.
Everyone is Jesus in Purgatory: There are some people on the internet that interpret this episode as an allegory for drug addiction, especially since "being hooked" is a well-known slang for being addicted to something, usually a substance.
Franchise Original Sin: The twist at the end which revealed that Mr. Krabs deliberately arranged for SpongeBob to be terrified he was going to die and get publicly humiliated still keeps him more or less sympathetic because he's genuinely doing it to help SpongeBob by making sure he wouldn't play on the hooks again; in any case, it wouldn't have been necessary if SpongeBob hadn't chosen to do so of his own free will. However, this unintentionally foreshadows episodes during the show's infamous Audience-Alienating Era where Mr. Krabs does some downright mean-spirited things without any good intentions or other justification beyond material gain and/or petty revenge.
SpongeBob eventually does wind up in a gift shop in the movie, meaning Mr. Krabs was right to warn him about it. However, it had nothing to do with hooks, and more to do with SpongeBob's Disney Death in said gift shop.
There's also the throwaway joke in "Krusty Love" that implies Mrs. Puff's deceased husband was made into a lampshade. Perhaps he was hooked and wound up in a gift shop as well.
Informed Wrongness: While there were indeed disastrous consequences to playing on the hooks, Mr. Krabs doesn't exactly have a good case to make against Patrick. Patrick's method of jumping off before going up too high is the same method in which real fish escape fishing rods, so he's managed to find a method of contingency, but rather than try to debunk the contingency method, Mr. Krabs resorts to using more "what if" scenarios by telling about being vacuum packed in a can of tuna. Even if the ending proved Mr. Krabs right, he doesn't provide a good argument as to why Patrick's contingency plan is flawed conceptually. Granted, the pair of shoes left behind by a kid does imply that merely being around them carries the risk of being hooked by one by surprise and SpongeBob ends up hooked while playing on them once more, implying one can still get hooked, even if they're clinging onto it and it was Mr. Krabs' machinations. Not to mention Patrick getting stuffed into a can of tuna at the end, even if he somehow made it back to sea.
The image of Patrick with a dozen fish hooks in his mouth is often used to accuse people of posting "bait" posts intended to provoke angry responses.
Similarly, the "My sandwich is a fried boot!" fish is often used to accuse people of being "bootlickers", i.e. blindly trusting authority figures.
The Woobie: SpongeBob. First, he's tricked into thinking he's being hooked on a line. Then he loses his pants and his underpants to get himself free, and gets laughed at for being completely naked by Pearl and her friends. Albeit, he did bring it all on himself by going on a hook once more after further warning from Mr. Krabs.
Why couldn't Barnacle Boy use his Sulfur Vision? Some interpret it as him just being old and his powers not working as well as they used to, but it could also be that he feels guilty about trying to destroy it in front of SpongeBob. It could also be that the conch signal literally can't be destroyed, since it's also one of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy's tools.
Did SpongeBob accidentally pop the Dirty Bubble trying to get his autograph, or was it a ploy just to set Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy free?
Fridge Brilliance: Why is the Origami Button a thing? If someone were to try and steal the invisible boatmobile (for whatever reason), that button could be used to sabotage the theft should the thief mistake it for something else (like what SpongeBob did).
"If I weren't retired, I'd, I'd... ROOOOAAAAR!! ...do that!"
THE [X] explanation A screenshot of Barnacle Boy trying to use his Sulfurvision on the Conch Signal, but with another object photoshopped in place of the Conch itself, making it look like Barnacle Boy is just staring intently at said object. The meme initially emerged as a spinoff of the preexisting "Yankee with no brim" meme from Black Twitter, about a baseball cap with its brim removed, before taking on a life of its own after dropping the original "with no [Y]" suffix.
