The Nitwitting (SpongeBob SquarePants)
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 "Jesus, humanity!" - Scott The Woz
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The Nitwitting is an episode from season twelve of SpongeBob SquarePants.
Plot
Patrick recruits SpongeBob into his club, the Empty Head Society. Before entering, SpongeBob is made to remove his brain and hand it in to check-out; however, while doing destructive "community service" with the group, his brainstem shorts out and severely lowers his intelligence. Patrick helps SpongeBob find his brain again.
Nitwit Qualities
- The concept about a club of brain-dead people is quite dumb (no pun intended).
- The Empty Head Society are all unlikable and annoying, since they really do is destroy Bikini Bottom instead of helping, as if they do this on purpose.
- Like in "Ink Lemonade", Patrick acts completely unlikable and unintelligent in this episode, as if he had been reverted back to his old character in the seasons 6-8.
- The infamous and gross scene where SpongeBob drinks the jar full of spit.
- To make this scene worse, it was later revealed that it wasn't supposed to drink it, so it just makes the whole scene pointless.
- Speaking of gross-out humor, this episode also has two gross close-ups: one in Patrick's eyes, and other in the Ice Cream King's mouth.
- While it is nice seeing Ice Cream King's return, it wasn't good as he was in his "past episode".
- The scene where SpongeBob loses his mind and starts to act like goofy looks more disturbing than funny.
- The Nitwitting Song, while catchy and a nice homage to Laurel and Hardy, has a terrible lyric.
- Bad ending: While it's revealed that Sandy and the rest of the FEMA (Fix the Emptyheads Mess Again) helps to clean all the mess the Empty Head Society does in the city, it later shows the Empty Head Society destroying everything while singing their song.
- It started the episodes in 2019 on an average note, especially for a bad note to a lot of SpongeBob SquarePants fans.
Unnitwit Qualities
- The scene where SpongeBob struggles to say his catchphrase "I'm Ready" is funny.
- Speaking of SpongeBob, he's still likable in this episode.
- The music for the title card is fitting.
- Good animation and voice acting as usual.
- It has good references to some episodes of the show, such as DoodleBob and Manray appearing as graffiti in the scene, along with some quotes from the show, such as "Squidward Smells" or "I'm Dirty Dan".
- Despite being unlikable and annoying, Patrick was at least nice to get SpongeBob his brain back.
- The Nittwitting Song is catchy despite its terrible lyrics, it's also a nice reference to the Laurel and Hardy shorts.
- The scene of SpongeBob drinking the full jar of spit can be seen as hilarious to some people.
Reception
This episode has a mixed-to-negative reception by fans and critics alike. It's considered the worst episode of Season 12 alongside "SpongeBob's Bad Habit", so much for being the second episode in airing order, the third in production order, and the first episode to air in 2019, which was the last year of the 2010s decade, and currently holds a 4.4 rating on IMDb.
Trivia
- This was the first episode of the series to premiere after Stephen Hillenburg's passing.