Spongebob SquarePants: The First 100 Episodes - DVD
|
Page 1 of 3 Paramount / 1999-2007 / Unrated / Street Date: September 22, 2009
I had heard enough about good ol' Spongebob SquarePants over the years that I knew I was going to have to see what his eponymous animated series looked like one of these days. And what better occasion to inaugurate myself into the underwater world of SBSP than with this fancy, totally excellent Spongebob SquarePants: The First 100 Episodes DVD box set? This writer is a sucker for anything in a nicely-presented deluxe edition, after all... Former DVDFiler Dan Linzmeier had this to say about the Spongebob phenomenon: "Why do I still love kid-oriented animation as an adult? I suppose I could give you some aesthetic reasons, but let's be honest; part of me just hasn't grown up. For pure mindless entertainment, give me the simple stuff such as The Powerpuff Girls, Looney Tunes, Silly Symphonies, and Nicktoons. Now comes Spongebob SquarePants, which has been developing a strong following over the past few years. "SquarePants follows the adventures of SpongeBob (Tom Kenny), the naïve head sponge of the series. He and his buddy Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke) always seem to be torturing Squidward (Rodger Bumpass), their long-suffering neighbor and primary antagonist. Finally we have Sandy (Carolyn Lawrence), a squirrel from Texas who lives with the local loonies in the undersea town of Bikini Bottom. Why? It is never fully explained, but it's a cartoon, so we just go with it..." It's this irreverence that gives Spongebob such a goofy glee - like Dan, I immediately fell in line with the show's careening, bustling storytelling style: It wasn't that the show was all that retro - this is definitely a show borne of the modern television age - it's just that it taps into a child-like strain of giddiness that I haven't experienced with many new cartoon series. More from Dan on some of the highlights here: "In SB-219, Spongebob and Patrick harass Squidward to go out jellyfishing with them, but he's determined to enjoy his free time by playing his clarinet. So in an effort to get away from them, he hides out in the freezer of the local restaurant, The Krusty Krab. Squidward accidentally locks himself in the freezer and is released 2000 years in the future. This whimsical time-traveling episode introduces us to past and future versions of Spongebob and Patrick, as well as the origin of jellyfishing. "Also excellent is F.U.N., in which our intrepid hero Spongebob attempts to see the good side of Mr. Plankton, a local terror from Bikini Bottom. Mr. Plankton is determined to steal the secrets to Mr. Krab's secret recipe, but Spongebob is certain that Mr. Plankton is not an evil invertebrate. Club Spongebob is hilarious because once again Squidward is being driven mad by Spongebob and Patrick, and come to the revelation that he always due for eleven minute of hell when he sees them coming. Of course the fact that Spongebob and Patrick are taking orders from a talking plastic shell is highly annoying (and funny) as well." In fact, what's truly astonishing about this set is that as encyclopedic as it is, it succeeds almost every time around. So many extensive TV series box sets are nice because you get to see every nook and cranny of a particular series, but the actual episode-to-episode quality tends to waver a bit. Whether it's famous fare like the amazing Goo Goo Gas and Atlantis Squarepantis (with a guest voice presence from David Bowie!) or more oblique affairs like Your Shoe's Untied/Squid's Day Off (featuring the exceptional talents of Dean and Gene Ween), everything here is simply a blast - smart, funny, logically untethered and deliriously silly. Conisder me officially and entirely converted. Complete episode list: 1. Help Wanted / Reef Blower / Tea at the Treedome |
Comments (0)