The Splinter (SpongeBob SquarePants)

"The Splinter"

June 2, 2008:
The day SpongeBob SquarePants went downhill, and in one of the most abysmal ways ever created. You wouldn't get sick easily..

Series:	SpongeBob SquarePants
Part of Season:	6
Episode Number:	5a
Air Date:	June 2, 2008
Writer:	Nate Cash Sean Charmatz Steven Banks
Previous episode:	Gone No Nose Knows (193-617) Squid's Visit (DVD Order) Pest of the West (Airing order)
Next episode:	Slide Whistle Stooges Grooming Gary (193-619) Giant Squidward (Airing order)

The Splinter is the fifth episode in the sixth season of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Summary

While working at the Krusty Krab, SpongeBob accidentally gets a splinter. Because of this, Squidward threatens him with being sent home.

Why It Has Got To Go

The episode is infamous for its over-usage of disturbingly awkward imagery and grotesque levels of cringe-inducing, unfunny attempts at gross-out humor; even then gross-out humor has been used before SpongeBob SquarePants, but at least the scale hadn't been turned too far above eleven at those points (i.e. this is out of place in an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants and feels as if it belongs in Ren and Stimpy instead). The most notable examples of the aforementioned imagery and gross-out humor include:
- The infamous scene where SpongeBob receives the splinter in slow-motion after slipping on a small puddle of spilled tartar sauce as said splinter goes right inside his thumb and it reddens.
- Several close-up shots of the splinter whose appearances are of grotesque quality to the point where any viewer would most likely lose their appetite while eating bread.
- SpongeBob's skin rips off of his body and his entire skeleton is exposed in the process after he attempts to bite off the splinter off of his thumb, design by Robertryan Cory.
- SpongeBob showing Squidward the splinter and some of the pus drip in his eye.
- Mr. Krabs sniffs a customer's pocket near the latter's behind before two of his quarters fly onto his nostrils.
- Patrick inserts SpongeBob's foot in his mouth and sucking and chewing on it.
- Patrick hammering the splinter further into SpongeBob's thumb.
- After Patrick puts a pile of garbage onto SpongeBob's splinter, it expands into a rather large size and becomes even more infected, with a lot of pus being released from the thumb.
  - The pile of garbage itself also looks disgusting in a way that comes across as disturbing.
- The "huge red abomination with pus and a pulsating red vein" that Mr. Enter described, which, no joke, caused him to vomit the first time he saw it.
- SpongeBob's infected thumb expands even more as Mr. Krabs is about to remove the splinter.
- Shortly after Mr. Krabs removes the splinter from SpongeBob's infected thumb, it first spews confetti but then spews a lot of pus onto Mr. Krabs and splats him all over until he gets an umbrella to shield himself from it.
  - Worse still, none of these gross-out moments are humorous, cartoonish, or over-the-top in the slightest or in a good way, instead, they're realistic, disturbing, and are very painful to watch or view.
The very premise of SpongeBob getting a splinter is generic in practice, and it worsens with the thumb enlarging with pus coming out of it.
It is a pretty disturbing SpongeBob torture episode.
If one thinks about it, the plot of this episode is also rather pointless, since SpongeBob could just remove his arm with the splinter on his thumb and then regenerate it; what makes the plot even more pointless is how SpongeBob for some reason does not seem to call Mr. Krabs right away, which would have been a better idea as the splinter would not infect his thumb even more.
- What’s not helping is the fact that this episode has a lot of filler to pad out the 11-minute runtime.
Squidward mistreating SpongeBob throughout the episode is very frustrating and filler. He flushes SpongeBob's hat and spatula away into the toilet, and continues making SpongeBob break down crying. It seems he doesn't care about it.
While some believe "Driven to Tears" or "Gone" started Patrick's flanderization, compared to those episode, this one sets his flanderization in motion. He worsens SpongeBob's infection by putting a pile of garbage onto it, assuming that it would make it "better"; he also doesn’t seem to focus on SpongeBob's splinter well, despite the latter's pleas to have his splinter be removed.
- SpongeBob also would’ve called a real doctor so there would be better and smarter ways to get his splinter off.
- Impersonating a doctor is considered a crime, according to Sandy Cheeks in "Suds". Unlike that episode, Patrick plays more like a real doctor and really breaks the law here.
  - Speaking of Patrick impersonating a doctor in "Suds", unlike the episode mentioned before where Patrick did it out of kindness, here Patrick seemed rather nasty and abusive towards SpongeBob, as he not only does it more aggressively, yet he acted arrogant towards SpongeBob, thinking that SpongeBob is a doctor, and gets angry at him when SpongeBob claims that he isn't a doctor. He also does it grudgingly, only giving in when SpongeBob cries not wanting to be sent home by Mr. Krabs. And even leaves after the splinter gets worse because his "shift" was over.
Though "All That Glitters" started the series’ decline, this episode both solidified and sped up the decline even more to the point where it started the dark age of the series as it wouldn’t recover until Season 9.

Redeeming Qualities

Good ending: As said before, SpongeBob's splinter was pulled out in the end.
Like with all episodes in SpongeBob SquarePants, there are at least funny and hilarious moments in this episode, including the following:
- Despite how mean-spirited the act was, Squidward utterly trolling SpongeBob into thinking he'll have to go home because of the Splinter was a riot. He flushes his hat and spatula down a toilet, tells him that it's the rule, stands there smiling as the poor sponge hyperventilates or cries on him, and admits he won't tell Mr. Krabs about the injury... "Because he already knows." Squid has enough time to grab two pillows to his ears before SpongeBob screams so loud he rolls out of the Krusty Krab and back into the kitchen like a tumbleweed, smiling the whole time. This mean-spirited moment in "The Splinter" can also be seen as hilarious.
- Squidward giving himself his karma by hitting himself with a cash register for failure to obtain (or research) worker's compensation does justify him self-punishing himself, which is at least hilarious. Despite this, though, Squidward is at least right about SpongeBob having to be sent home, even though he already failed to obtain worker's compensation in the first place.
Squidward does seem to regret the way he treated SpongeBob in this episode given the prior explanation above and in the scene where he sees how bad SpongeBob's injury and infection is, he faints out of shock.
The episode teaches viewers a very good moral: "Be careful with or on wooden materials, or else you'll get a splinter".
SpongeBob is still a likeable character as he remains his normal self in the first episodes of the dark age until Boating Buddies.

Reception

It is considered one of the worst episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants ever made and has a rating of 4/10 alongside Slide Whistle Stooges on iMDB.

Trivia

TheMysteriousMrEnter's review of "The Splinter" was the debut episode for his "Animated Atrocities" series.
This is Tom Kenny’s (the voice actor of SpongeBob and Gary) least favorite SpongeBob episode with his favorite being Pizza Delivery.

Gallery

WARNING! Do not watch those gross-out pictures if you're eating.

"Whoa! Hey, a splinter."
He's gonna want to take a day off for a couple of days after this.
Very clever, writers. very clever..
"Oh, merciful Neptune!"
Confetti somehow comes out of the splinter.
"Problem sol... [green pus shoots out of SpongeBob's thumb onto Mr. Krabs' face. He takes out an umbrella as it dies down. There is a close-up of SpongeBob's free hand, bending his splinter-free thumb]"
"There appears to be a little of swelling."
This is where it goes downhill.
Geez, what's so exciting about when Krabby Krab opens?