Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful (SpongeBob SquarePants)

"Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful"
And people question why they don't know how to save our planet...
Series: SpongeBob SquarePants Part of Season: 7 Episode Number: 131a (223-713) Air Date: January 2, 2010 Writer: Luke Brookshier Nate Cash Dani Michaeli Previous episode: Model Sponge (223-712) Next episode: A Pal for Gary SpongeBob's Last Stand (223–714/715)

Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful is an episode from season 7 of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Plot

Squidward gets caught littering and is sentenced to community service.

Why This Episode Is Filled With Litter

1. Addressing the elephant in the room, this episode is notorious for having some of the most unfunny gross-out humor in the series, much like "The Splinter" from season six. In addition, the pacing is dull and slow due to the number of drawn-out gags, as in most cases within seasons six through eight.
2. The name of the episode contradicts itself. It’s named "Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful", yet the episode does the exact opposite.
3. The opening is the exact opposite of "Boating Buddies", with Squidward getting a ticket and being forced to do community service, except in said episode, he's forced to go to Boating School.
4. This episode follows some of the more pointlessly unnecessary and repetitive running gags of Officer John, one of the Bikini Bottom policemen, giving Squidward tickets for no discernible reason without giving him at least a bit of time to explain the situation or even giving him a break in general. He sentenced Squidward to community service just for one reason: tossing gum on the ground (which wasn’t Squidward’s gum by the way), and that’s it.
   • In fact, there's this one very infamous scene where it looks like Officer John was about to give Squidward a ticket for no reason.
   • To make it even more annoying, they played the same music in the background every single time he shows up.
5. SpongeBob places Squidward’s trash literally underneath Squidward’s house, making the trash from a replica, causing Officer John to accuse Squidward of littering and giving him more tickets over and over again. SpongeBob’s only explanation is that the dump is closed, making the climax of the episode feel very contrived.
6. Excessive amounts of cringe-inducing and disgusting scenes, such as:
   • Squidward bathing, eating, and drinking garbage, all at the aforementioned replica without noticing a thing until it was convenient on the writers’ part.
   • SpongeBob absorbs the garbage onto his body whilst talking with his mouth full of garbage, the garbage coming out of his mouth.
   • SpongeBob making a statue of Squidward made of the aforementioned garbage.
7. Squilliam, despite being the main antagonist of the episode, only has two scenes and is used as a plot device to torture Squidward even more.
8. Plot hole: As mentioned above in the previous point, how does Squidward not realize that his house is made of garbage until he gets into bed?
9. Semi-bad ending: Officer John gives both Squidward and SpongeBob tickets, even though he should have only given SpongeBob tickets for reasons mentioned earlier. Yes, Squidward was with SpongeBob, but that doesn't help the fact that Officer John just sucks at his job and is still biased and annoying.
   • In fact, Officer John never gets any repercussions for his actions.
10. Unlike most of the bad Squidward torture episodes, this is one of those episodes in which Squidward suffers for little to no reason.
11. Due to all the reasons listed above, this episode along with its sister episode "A Pal for Gary" most likely started the 2010s in a horrible way.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Despite having a super repetitive story, this episode was trying to teach viewers about recycling.
2. Good beginning: This episode starts with a good note, where Squidward happily walks down the street while "Cha Cha Del Sol" is playing in the background.
   • Speaking of which, this production track is amazingly and distinctively catchy as well.
   • Also, Squidward singing "Ignoring, ignoring...", which is a reference to the song "Good Morning" in "Babes in Arms," the 1939 film) when he passes SpongeBob's house is funny.
3. Squilliam’s statue before it got melted by the stench of Squidward’s trash-filled statue is decent looking, and Squidward's trash house is very funny looking.
4. Borderline funny lines such as:
   • "Of all the garbage that comes out of your mouth, this is the least annoying."
   • "Is it trash day? I thought it was Tuesday!"
     • While Officer John is useless and annoying, the Running Gag of Officer John ticketing Squidward whenever he unintentionally litters is very funny.
5. It's nice to see SpongeBob trying to help Squidward deal with the garbage, which makes him relatively likeable here, the same can't be said about its sister episode that much, though.
   • Speaking of which, its sister episode is one of the most widely despised episodes of the series.
6. Depending on your view, Squidward's trash house and statue are funny looking.
7. At least SpongeBob was trying to help Squidward.
8. Despite being really irritating in most of the episode, at least Squilliam got his comeuppance at the end for being a jerk to Squidward when he gets tickets from Officer John for thinking that his statue was rotten, which is hilarious.

Trivia

• It was the first episode to air in the 2010s decade.
• In 2018, a newer version of this episode called "Sanitation Insanity" was created.
• It's paired up with the infamous episode "A Pal for Gary".

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