The prophecy is nigh!
Dunces and Dragons
Original air date: 2/20/2006 (produced in 2005)
While at an event named Medieval Moments, SpongeBob and Patrick are catapulted back into medieval times, where they meet ancestors of their friends and neighbors and have to rescue the princess from an evil wizard.
"Dunces and Dragons" contains examples of:
- Accidental Time Travel: How hard does a seahorse have to buck to send you to the middle ages?
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The book adaptation removed the Mind Screw in the ending, where Patrick revealed what appeared to be Squidly underneath him; it instead ends with Patrick asking SpongeBob if they can eat now.
- All Just a Dream: Turns out the entire episode was just a dream SpongeBob and Patrick had when they got knocked out during the joust.
- Anachronism Stew:
- Medieval Bikini Bottom has a bowling alley, of all things.
- King Krabs uses a guillotine for execution, when the guillotine as it's known now wasn't invented until 1792 during The French Revolution, a good 700 years after the episode would take place.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: During the jellyfish dragon's rampage, it torched a hospital, a school, a retirement home, and even a medieval bowling alley.Random Citizen: Not the bowling alley!
- Bait-and-Switch Comment:SpongeBob: Knights, jesters, dragons, medieval bowling alleys; 12th century?! Don't you see, Patrick? We really are in medieval times!
Patrick: Oh no! ...I think I left the water running at home! - Batman Can Breathe in Space: The Dark Knight can somehow survive underwater without a helmet. But considering she works for Planktonamor (an evil wizard), this could be the result of magic.
- Big "NO!": Done by SpongeBob when Sandy's ancestor tells Planktonamor's guards to pluck his eyelashes, and later by Patrick when the jellyfish dragon eats his Krabby Patty.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: "You're just 20 wizard's paces away from swords, sorcery, and bad hygiene!"
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Parodied with the jellyfish net that SpongeBob had received.
- Played straight with the Krabby Patties that SpongBob packed for lunch, which helps him to tame Planktonamor's dragon.
- Comically Missing the Point:SpongeBob: I don't think we can stop the dragon with our bare hands.
Patrick: Yeah. We need some gloves. - Damsel in Distress: Princess Pearl.
- Dirty Coward: While Squidly's much friendlier to SpongeBob and Patrick than his descendant, he still asks the Dark Knight to get them and let him pass. On the other hand, he is brazen enough to sing a ditty for the king that explicitly blames said king for the crisis.
- Dragon-in-Chief: An literal example, by himself Planktonamor is totally harmless since his magic blasts just envokes ticklish sensations against targets bigger than him, however the dragon jellyfish is really an almost unstoppable threat.
- Eye Awaken: SpongeBob gets one when he wakes up back at the joust in the ending, realizing the whole adventure was a dream from getting knocked out.
- Falling into the Plot: The story begins with Patrick and SpongeBob being launched from seahorses into the sky, and when they land, they learn they somehow time traveled back to medieval times.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Or rather, a sponge and starfish out of temporal water.
- Food as Bribe: How the Dragon Jellyfish is dealt with; after tasting a Krabby Patty and becoming dazzled with it, SpongeBob offers to give it more, which instantly convinces it to turn against Planktonamor.
- Giving Radio to the Romans:
- SpongeBob introduces the Krabby Patty to medieval times. King Krabs takes the invention as his own.
- Similarly, SpongeBob introduces karate to Sandy's ancestor, which is part of why she joins the group.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: At one point, SpongeBob karate-chops Squidly in half, but Squidly remains alive and conscious.
- "The Hero Sucks" Song: Squidly's "The King Was Bad", which he sings to King Krabs to blame him for letting the kingdom be tortured by the dragon jellyfish.
- Hope Spot: It seems that SpongeBob has stopped the dragon jellyfish with his jellyfishing net however it burns through it a couple of seconds afterward.
- Identical Ancestor: Most of the characters SpongeBob and Patrick meet in Medieval Bikini Bottom are ancestors of the rest of the cast. However, in terms of characterization, there are actually some differences.
- Squidly lacks Squidward's surliness, narcissism, and delusions of grandeur, being quite friendly towards SpongeBob and Patrick and entirely content with his lowly position as the royal jester.
- Princess Pearl acts as the Voice of Reason and lacks her modern counterpart's Bratty Teenage Daughter tendencies.
- The Dark Knight (Medivel Sandy) starts out as a villain serving Planktonamor, though she has a sense of honor and quickly performs a Heel–Face Turn.
- Impact Silhouette: SpongeBob and Patrick each make one in the wall when the seahorses buck them off their backs.
- Larynx Dissonance: Sandy's medieval ancestor speaks in a deep baritone before revealing herself.
- Letting the Air out of the Band: When SpongeBob and the others tire themselves out running up Plankton's extensive stairway.
- Literal Asskicking: Part of the prophecy depicts King Krabs doing it to SpongeBob and Patrick, but then SpongeBob and Patrick manage to do it to themselves.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Done twice by Squidly:
- When SpongeBob karate-chops him in half, Squidly only says, "Ow-eth."
- Then when the jellyfish dragon zaps him, all he says is, "Everyone be-eth a critic."
- Planktonamor has one, too: when the jellyfish dragon zaps him, Planktonamor can only mutter weakly, "Curses! You win."
- Even the blacksmith has one: when SpongeBob's sword gets stuck in his chest, the blacksmith just laughs it off and remarks, "That's going to need some stitches."
- Negated Moment of Awesome: At first, when SpongBob whips out his jellyfish net against the jellyfish dragon, it seems like he successfully caught it... but then a few moments later, the dragon burns it away.
- Oh, Crap!: SpongeBob and Patrick's reactions when they learned they're not watching the joust up close, but in the joust.
- Or Was It a Dream?: Doubles as Mind Screw. At the end, SpongeBob wakes up from where he and Patrick got knocked out in the jousting incident and assumes that their adventure was All Just a Dream. But then Patrick says "try telling that to Squidly" and reveals Squidly crushed underneath him.
- Our Dragons Are Different: This "Dragon" is just a large jellyfish with a dragon-like tail and crest.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title is a parody of Dungeons & Dragons.
- Running Gag: Squidly's random singing.
- Shaking the Rump: Squidly does this while singing to King Krabs.
- Shout-Out:
- The restaurant "Medieval Moments" is a spoof of the restaurant chain Medieval Times.
- Planktonamor's tower is a reference to the Eye of Sauron.
- Suicide as Comedy: One of the employees playing a guard at Medieval Moments is so annoyed by SpongeBob's attempt to talk medieval English, he nearly stabs himself in the throat with his spear.Guard: Someday, but not today...
- Throat-Slitting Gesture: King Krabs does this gesture to the guards when he wanted SpongeBob, Patrick and Squidly executed.
- Time Travel Episode: This episode has SpongeBob and Patrick (accidentally) traveling back in time to the Middle Ages.
- Trojan Prisoner: The group infiltrates Planktonamor's castle with the recently-befriended Dark Knight pretending to have captured SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidly. Despite knowing that this is a trick, SpongeBob reacts with genuine fear when the Dark Knight relates all the various horrible ways she plans to have them tortured.
- The Unreveal: How exactly the duo ended up traveling back in time after being launched in to the sky is never made clear.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
- Wingding Eyes: Sandy's ancestor gains X-eyes when she falls unconscious.
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: How most of the Medieval Bikini Bottomites speak.
