Recap / SpongeBob SquarePants S2 E19 "Jellyfish Hunter" / "The Fry Cook Games"

He may be a jellyfish hunter, but he's no jellyfish poacher.

Jellyfish Hunter

Original air date: 9/28/2001

After a customer tries and enjoys one of SpongeBob's custom made Krabby Patties with jellyfish jelly on it, Mr. Krabs gets SpongeBob to catch jellyfish to keep up the demand for these "Jelly Patties", but a mysterious blue jellyfish shows SpongeBob the consequences of his actions.

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"Jellyfish Hunter" contains examples of:

• The Ace: No-Name is the only jellyfish smart enough to avoid every single one of SpongeBob's traps, and the only one to avoid capture even after he's caught the other four million living at Jellyfish Fields. Naturally, he's the one to force SpongeBob to see what Mr. Krabs is actually doing to all the jellyfish he's caught.
• An Aesop:
  • It's best to let wildlife be free.
  • Be kind to animals, don't mistreat them, especially if you exploit them just to get a cheap buck.
  • There's a difference between pure sport and being a hunter.
  • If you want to harvest a natural resource, do so in a way that doesn't cause direct or lasting harm to the environment.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Mr. Krabs as he does cruel farming towards the jellyfish to milk them for all the jelly they're worth.
• Bait-and-Switch: SpongeBob approaches Krabs menacingly holding a wrench, saying he's going to do "something that should have done long ago", leading the audience to believe he's going to beat Mr. Krabs mercilessly (or smash the machine open to set the jellyfish free). He then uses the wrench to fix a loose bolt on the door of the jellyfish trap.
• Berserk Button: Mr. Krabs is not impressed when SpongeBob tops his Krabby Patty with jelly, and immediately accuses SpongeBob of tampering with the formula. That is until the customers tell him how much they loved their patties...
• Blatant Lies:
  Mr. Krabs: This isn't what it looks like, SpongeBob. Why, we're just...uh...having a...little...tea party!
• Bond One-Liner: A defeated and mortified Mr. Krabs, after being electrocuted by all of the freed jellyfish, says he's taking jelly off the menu, to which SpongeBob replies "He really got burned on that deal."
• Calling Card: What alerts SpongeBob to No-Name's presence in his house is through him having left a Krabby Patty coated in blue jelly, which also serves as his hint to SpongeBob as to what's really going on behind the scenes.
• Capitalism Is Bad: To make his new Jelly Patties, Mr. Krabs exploits SpongeBob for free labor catching jellyfish, eventually leading to Jellyfish fields being completely empty and all its inhabitants being kept in a large factory. SpongeBob is horrified to discover what’s become of all the jellyfish he caught.
  SpongeBob: PU! What smells like big business?
• Cruel to Be Kind: No-Name captures SpongeBob in a jar, not for torture, but to let him know what Mr. Krabs is up to.
• Didn't Think This Through: As Kitty Monk pointed out, Krabs could have simply asked Spongebob to bring him jars of jellyfish jelly, instead of the animals themselves. That way, he could harvest all the jelly he needs for his patties, without causing any harm to Jellyfish Fields. But as usual, his greed overrode his thinking, leading him to hold the jellyfish in captivity instead.
  • Also, his design of the Jellyfish Factory makes no sense. Instead of using a generator to power the place, he uses an exercise bike, which means he not only needs to always be present, but constantly peddling to keep it running. Not only that, but he stores all the jellyfish in a voice-activated container, when a simple padlock or digital keypad would have worked. Both mistakes bite him big time when he says "Open" in a moment of carelessness, causing the jellyfish to run free and give him the mother of all stings (since he can't escape on an exercise bike).
• Dirty Coward: After the jellyfish are freed, Mr. Krabs pathetically tries to flee from them, only to end up going nowhere due to using an exercise bike.
  Mr. Krabs: You'll never catch me! (laughs and pedals before realizing he's getting nowhere) Blasted exercise craze! (gets brutally fried by the jellyfish while he screams in pain)
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • The episode is obviously a reference to cruel animal practices and how they relate to the food industry. SpongeBob initially only catches what he needs and lets the animals go, but a fast food customer takes notice and loves this animal product. Wanting to make profit off of the practice, Mr. Krabs ruins the environment by taking all of the jellyfish, and the jellyfish are forced to live in cramped conditions in a factory, their bodies being abused (such as a jellyfish being juiced like a citrus fruit or being squeezed like bottles, then thrown away in garbage cans) to maximize products that can be made from them.
  • This may be lost on viewers too young to remember a time before caller ID, but the gag of No-Name calling SpongeBob's house, making creepy breathing noises and then hanging up is meant to resemble an obscene phone call.
• The Dog Bites Back: The jellyfish brutally sting Mr. Krabs after being unwittingly released by him.
• Easily Forgiven: SpongeBob ultimately holds no ill will towards No-Name, despite the fact that he kidnapped SpongeBob and (rather unnecessarily) cut his power.
• Enemy Mine: Spongebob and No-Name team up to end Krabs' jellyfish exploitation operation.
• Epic Fail: Mr. Krabs attempts to escape from the jellyfish swarm on his exercycle... which is bolted to the floor.
  Mr. Krabs: Blasted exercise craze! (the jellyfish violently electrocute him and he screams in pain)
• Failed a Spot Check: When No-Name appears when SpongeBob finds out the Krabby Patty in his house has blue jelly, SpongeBob doesn't even mention that No-Name is now huge.
• Fantastic Livestock: After discovering the money-making potential of jellyfish jelly in Krabby Patties, Mr. Krabs orders SpongeBob to capture more jellyfish to the point of over-hunting its entire population in Jellyfish Fields, and he later builds a factory to mass-farm the jellyfish for his own benefit. The climax of the episode has SpongeBob trying to undo the damage Mr. Krabs has done to the jellyfish population, complete with a Green Aesop.
• Greed: Krabs is arguably at his most gluttonous here during the show's Glory Days. After he learns how profitable Spongebob's jelly patties can be, he tricks his naive employee into bringing him every single Jellyfish in Bikini Bottom and puts them through a Nightmarish Factory to harvest as much jelly as he can, all in the name of making more money.
  Mr. Krabs: Oh-ho, I'll keep 'em comfortable, alright. Inside me wallet!
• Green Aesop: The food industry should not be cruel to animals. Wild animals are meant to be free.
• Harassing Phone Call: While stalking SpongeBob, No-Name calls his house, makes creepy breathing noises then hangs up, leaving SpongeBob quite unnerved.
  SpongeBob: Hehehe... Wrong number.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Krabs is defeated by using his exercise craze and voice-activated cage against him.
• Ignorant Minion: SpongeBob has no idea that Mr. Krabs was imprisoning the jellyfish he caught.
• I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!: As SpongeBob is trying to open the jellyfish cage.
  Mr. Krabs: Well, you can't. That door is voice-activated, and it will only open if I say "Open"! (cue him quickly covering his mouth)
• Impossibly Delicious Food: The Krabby Patties when they get topped with jellyfish jelly.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After Krabs inadvertently frees all the jellyfish, they electrocute him, causing Mr. Krabs to take Jelly Patties off the menu.
• Major Injury Underreaction: "I'm taking jelly off the menu."
• Manipulative Bastard: How Mr. Krabs deceives SpongeBob into emptying out all of Jellyfish Fields.
  SpongeBob: But, sir, how many jellyfish do you need?
  Mr. Krabs: SpongeBob. We have a whole ecosystem full of hungry, paying customers. (pretending to be sad) Oh, no! Don't tell me! You've stopped caring for the customers!
  SpongeBob: (shrieks) No! Never!
  Mr. Krabs: Then, go out there and get me some more jellies!
• A Match Made in Stockholm: Played with. Despite No-Name abducting SpongeBob and stuffing him in a jar, SpongeBob becomes sympathetic to his plight when he sees the mistreatment the jellyfish are put through. Upon this sympathy, No-Name has something of a change of heart towards SpongeBob and they both defeat Mr. Krabs. He then allows SpongeBob to "catch" him as a way to apologize for the earlier kidnapping.
• Mean Boss: Mr. Krabs, naturally. On top of lying to SpongeBob, he grants him just a five-minute lunch break, which SpongeBob considers to be generous on his part.
• Meaningful Rename: After No-Name willingly lets himself fall into SpongeBob's net at the end, he happily renames him "Friend".
• Meat-O-Vision: When the singing customer says that he'll come to the Krusty Krab everyday to eat Krabby Patties with jelly, Krabs sees him as a dollar bill.
• Nightmare Face: The infamous "MOAR Krabs" from the "More!" montage.
• No Name Given: SpongeBob refers to the blue jellyfish as "No-Name", but in the ending, he decides to name him "Friend" after he willingly allows himself to be "caught".
• Noodle Incident: After Fred finishes singing "Hey All You People"...
  Mr. Krabs: SpongeBob! Who's playing Squidward's records again?!
• Ode to Food: A customer likes SpongeBob's Krabby Patty with jellyfish jelly so much that he must tell everyone... in song! Mr. Krabs thinks someone is playing Squidward's records again.
• Oh, Crap!: SpongeBob suspects something is afoot as No-Name stalks him around his house. His worst fears are confirmed when he's lured by a Krabby Patty with blue jelly.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Mr. Krabs tells SpongeBob that the door of the jellyfish cage operates by voice command and can only be open when he says "Open". And of course he says it out loud, inadvertently freeing the jellyfish.
• Properly Paranoid: SpongeBob feels like someone is following him home. Turns out to be No-Name, but also he thinks that someone "Is trying to sell me something!" Sure enough, there are two salesmen hiding behind a boulder when he says this.
  Salesfish: I told you he was on to us!
• Shout-Out: The Harassing Phone Call No-Name gives to SpongeBob is a reference to When a Stranger Calls.
• Stalker without a Crush: After SpongeBob seemingly has captured every jellyfish in Jellyfish Fields, No-Name stalks him back home, though for justifiable reasons.
• Stupid Evil: Mr. Krabs uses the word "ecosystem" to describe his web of customers while demanding SpongeBob deplete the ecosystem of its jellyfish so that Krabs can harvest them all for jelly production.
• Vader Breath: No-Name uses this to intimidate SpongeBob with a threatening phone call (also because, like most jellyfish, he can't speak).
• Villain Song: Although only a few seconds of it play in the episode due to time constraints, Mr. Krabs listens to "Give It All You Got" on his exercise bike.
• Wrench Whack: Subverted. SpongeBob grabs a wrench and it looks like he's about to hit Mr. Krabs with it, but then he just uses it to tighten a bolt.
• You Are Number 6: SpongeBob names each jellyfish he catches, with No-Name being the only jellyfish he hasn't caught yet.
  SpongeBob: You're my twelfth catch of the day! I'm gonna call you Twelvey.

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"Yellow! "PINK!"

The Fry Cook Games

Original air date: 9/28/2001

SpongeBob is competing in the annual Fry Cook Games, hoping to bring gold for the Krusty Krab. But Plankton has an ace up his sleeve: he has hired Patrick to compete! Can their friendship withstand the pressure of competition?

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"The Fry Cook Games" contains examples of:

• Actually, That's My Assistant: When introducing the Chum Buckets' Fry Cook who will be competing in the Fry Cook Games, Plankton plays up how massive and powerful they are as the thundering footsteps grow closer: resulting in a buff fish with broad shoulders. Plankton then says that he's a "Huge Guy Who's Carrying The Real Contestant" as they turn around to show Patrick Star.
• An Aesop: Don't let competition ruin relationships, especially if there's no good reward in the end.
• Agony of the Feet: During the bun wrestling match, how does Patrick decide to torture SpongeBob? By taking off his shoe and licking his foot. It actually does work because SpongeBob screams like if he was getting horribly injured.
• Arc Words: "Yellow" and "Pink" are thrown between Patrick and SpongeBob as insults to each other throughout the episode. This is then flipped during the final fight as it's revealed they're both wearing each other's signature color on their underwear.
  SpongeBob: Yellow?
  Patrick: Pink?
  Both: You do care!
• Audible Gleam: When SpongeBob fires back at Patrick for mocking his nail polish, his index finger sparkles with a twinkling sound effect.
• Bait-and-Switch: As Plankton introduces his champion, a Giant Mook lumbers into the stadium, the ground shaking as he does. Turns out he was just carrying the real contender, Patrick.
• Battle Strip: Parodied. SpongeBob and Patrick do this during the wrestling match. SpongeBob strips off his robe to reveal a muscular body, and Patrick reveals a business suit... which he tears off to show a muscular body.
• Because I Said So:
  Plankton: Win this one because I told you to.
  Patrick: BECAUSE YOU TOLD ME TOOOO!!!
• Berserk Button: GAAAAAAH!!! MY NAME'S! NOT! RIIIIIICK!!!!
• Big Ball of Violence: SpongeBob and Patrick briefly form one during the final event.
• Bittersweet Ending: Neither SpongeBob nor Patrick win the Fry Cook Games, but at least they're friends once again.
• Black Comedy Cannibalism: Patrick accidentally splatters fryer oil onto a portion of the fish audience, turning them into fried fish sticks. With that, a salesman comes by, puts a dollar sign beside them and chants "Fish sticks! Get your fish sticks here!" for anyone to buy.
• Bottle Episode: The episode is set solely at the Fast Food Coliseum, where the titular games take place.
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: While Plankton is announcing the entrance of his champion for the Fry Cook Games, as the stadium shakes with the stomping, a couple of adult fish cover the eyes of a kid fish (presumably their son) in the middle of them. The kid replies in kind by covering their eyes.
• Dissension Remorse: SpongeBob and Patrick tearfully stop their feud between each other upon seeing each other's underwear is colored like its opposite owner.
  SpongeBob: Yellow?
  Patrick: Pink?
  Both: You do care! (both cry)
• Dressed in Layers: Parodied. When SpongeBob and Patrick get in the wrestling ring, SpongeBob tears off his robe and becomes muscular. Patrick then tears off his robe to reveal... a business suit, which he then tears off to reveal his muscular body.
• Eat My Dust: When SpongeBob tells Patrick "You're gonna eat my dust", Patrick responds with "I'm eating my own dust!"
  Spongebob: Not if I eat it first!
• Eye Scream: In order to show off his toughness before the final event, Patrick tears a lemon in half, and puts the two halves on his eyeballs.
• Feud Episode: Between Mr. Krabs and Plankton and between SpongeBob and Patrick, especially the latter.
• Greed: While Spongebob competes to bring honor and glory to the Krusty Krab, Mr. Krabs unsurprisingly cares far more about the free publicity that is winning the gold medal and the customers it will bring than the prestige of it.
• Growing Muscles Sequence: A quick version. When the wrestling event begins, SpongeBob rips off his robe causing his body to expand to gigantic size and grow muscles; Patrick does the same, only to reveal a business suit underneath, then he rips that off to grow his own muscular body.
• Handicapped Badass: Plankton once won an (onion) ring gymnastics routine despite having a broken antennae.
• Hidden Depths: Even though Patrick was only recently hired by Plankton, he's just as good of a fry cook athlete as SpongeBob, as their scores were tied by the final event.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal: SpongeBob and Patrick exchanges these lines while wrestling each other, seconds before the Dissension Remorse as shown above:
  SpongeBob: I don't like you!
  Patrick: I don't like you more!
  SpongeBob: I never liked you!
  Patrick: I a thousand times never liked you!
• Hypocrite: Plankton when he calls SpongeBob evil.
• Hypocritical Humor: When Patrick makes fun of SpongeBob for polishing his fingernails, SpongeBob fires back by stating that Patrick doesn't even have fingers. When Patrick responds that he can't believe what he's hearing, SpongeBob retorts "HOW CAN YOU HEAR IT?! YOU DON'T HAVE EARS EITHER!" despite not having any visible ears himself.
• Invisible Anatomy:
  • Lampshaded when Patrick pokes fun of SpongeBob for polishing his fingernails.
    Patrick: Fingernails! Fingernails! Fingernails!
    SpongeBob: You don't even have fingernails!
    Patrick: I cannot believe what I'm hearing!
    SpongeBob: How can you hear it? You don't have ears, either!
  • Plankton being The Noseless is also referenced when Krabs says he smells him, and Plankton puts on a prosthetic nose to smell Krabs, only to realize that he himself really does stink.
• It's Personal:
  Patrick: Forget the Chum Bucket. This is personal. (proceeds to lick SpongeBob's foot, making him scream)
• Jerkass Has a Point: Mr. Krabs isn't exactly wrong when psyching SpongeBob up to face up against Patrick regardless of their friendship that Patrick is "making a mockery of [SpongeBob's] profession" and he's just a "pretender". After all, Patrick flat-out admits he's been working at the Chum Bucket for about five minutes in order to get qualified to join the games and only did it to show that he could easily become a fry cook compared to SpongeBob having far more experience in the business. Just about anyone would feel slighted at someone dissing the profession they take pride in.
• Karma Houdini: Nothing bad happens to Krabs and Plankton for shamelessly manipulating SpongeBob and Patrick, as well as almost ruining their friendship, albeit one could say that the humiliation and shaming they will most likely face for losing the Fry Cook games can apply as a punishment.
• Lampshade Hanging: "I'm a realistic fishhead!"
• Malicious Misnaming:
  • Patrick calls SpongeBob "SpongeBob SuperiorPants" in retaliation for telling him he's not a fry cook.
  • After the diving event, SpongeBob and Patrick spitefully call each other "Yellow Boy" and "Pinkie" respectively, also simply calling each other “Yellow” and “Pink” throughout.
  • And who could ever forget SpongeBob erasing the "Pat" on Patrick's Chum Bucket name tag? Patrick responds by screaming that "MY NAME'S! NOT! RIIIIIIIICK!"
• Mean Boss: Mr. Krabs and Plankton are both at their worst here, manipulating a pair of long-time friends into hating each other's guts and exploiting them for their own selfish purposes without a hint of remorse.
• Medium-Shift Gag:
  • The audience members splashed by cooking oil turn into real fish sticks.
  • In the ice cream diving event, Patrick attempts to create a double scoop strawberry cone dipped in chocolate. After the dive, he becomes a photograph of a double scoop strawberry cone dipped in chocolate.
• Mouthscreen: After Plankton and Mr. Krabs' give their speeches when SpongeBob and Patrick give off a war cry.
• Paper Tiger: When Plankton suggests those with weak constitutions leave the stadium, the only person to try and leave is the muscular fish.
• Pseudolympics: The episode provides events such as patty throwing, artistic ice cream diving, bun wrestling...
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: When SpongeBob erases the first half of his name from his name tag, Patrick shouts "my name's not Rick," pausing between "name's" and "not" before drawing out "Rick" to accentuate his agony.
• Real Men Wear Pink: At the end of the episode, SpongeBob is revealed to wear pink underwear.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: SpongeBob and Patrick become friends again before the last event is finished, leading to them walking happily out of the stadium holding hands. The audience boos, and Mr. Krabs and Plankton demand them to come back to finish the last event, but they fail in succeeding.
• Serious Business: The whole competition to the point that it turns SpongeBob and Patrick into rivals.
• Shout-Out: To Carmen Miranda during the montage of challenges SpongeBob and Patrick go through.
• Skyward Scream: Patrick does this when he yells out one of the most iconic lines in SpongeBob history.
• Sore Loser: Neither Krabs nor Plankton take losing to the other at the Fry Cook Games, with Plankton spraying Krabs with a hose the year Krabs won the gold medal, while Krabs blew Plankton away from the podium the year Plankton won.
• Tears of Remorse: SpongeBob and Patrick shed these upon seeing their underwear has the color of its opposite owner, leading to them reconciling.
• Temporary Bulk Change: SpongeBob and Patrick become big and muscular during the bun wrestling competition. They're back to normal in the next episode.
• Toilet Humour: After the reveal that SpongeBob and Patrick are wearing underwear of each other's color (SpongeBob wearing pink, Patrick wearing yellow), Patrick reveals at the end that "these were white when I bought 'em."
• Two Scenes, One Dialogue: The scene in which Mr. Krabs and Plankton convince SpongeBob and Patrick respectively to win the medal for them in spite of their friendship.
  Plankton: Now get out there!
  Krabs: And WIN!
  Plankton: THAT!
  Krabs: MEDAL!
• Tutti Frutti Hat: During the montage of events, SpongeBob and Patrick dance while they each don one.
• The Unreveal: Due to SpongeBob and Patrick leaving the stadium after making up, it's unknown if Mr. Krabs and Plankton got disqualified after losing their fighters.
• Volleying Insults: During the argument between SpongeBob and Patrick.
  Patrick: Holes! Holes!
  SpongeBob: Cone head!
  Patrick: Yellow!
  SpongeBob: Pink!
• We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: At the beginning, before the torch bearer can light the torch, it ends up getting extinguished by the wind. After a 'Please Stand By' screen, the big opening for the Fry Cook Games is repeated, this time with the torch bearer shielding the torch from wind and showing exhaustion from having to do the run to the stadium again.
• We Used to Be Friends: SpongeBob and Patrick's friendship comes to a halt when the two argue over Patrick's qualifications for joining the Fry Cook Games. Fortunately, they patch things up in the end.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: SpongeBob and Patrick dressed as Carmen Miranda in the montage of events in which they participate.

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