Spongebob Squarepants: One Coarse Meal

One Horrid Episode

Nickelodeon: 2010

So, among the many awful Spongebob episodes that people claim to be the worst in the series, there are several that seem to often get mentioned. One is Atlantis Squarepantis, another is Dear Vikings, and another well known bad episode is The Splinter. But one that also seems to get mentioned a lot is One Coarse Meal. And after watching the episode, I finally get why. If A Pal For Gary helped show how much of a scumbag Spongebob can be, this episode was no better in helping to fix his image. So, let's delve back into the sea again for another look. Let's review this thing.

So, first I guess we should see who wrote this episode?

Ah, Casey Alexander and Zeus Cervas. The same two who wrote "A Pal for Gary", as well as many of the infamously bad episodes of the current Spongebob era. We're really in for a treat, aren't we?

We open the episode at the Krusty Krab, as Mr. Krabs is partaking in a money bath, when he smells something bad. Perhaps he smells the script for this episode. It turns out that it's explosives set by his old enemy Plankton. After blowing up the kitchen in the restaurant, Plankton manages to capture both Mr. Krabs and Spongebob in an attempt to once again gain the krabby patty secret formula. Spongebob blabs the location, meaning that all has been won for Plankton.

However, one gigantic flaw in his plan walks into the room in the form of Mr. Krabs' daughter Pearl. This causes Plankton to go into a panic, and runs away. Turns out that Plankton has a fear of whales knowing that they eat his fellow plankton. This gives Mr. Krabs an idea. He asks Pearl to go to the Chum Bucket to pay a visit to Plankton. But she wants more mall money, to which Spongebob pays her in "Mr. Krabs Wacky Bucks", the phony money that he gets paid in. You'd be offended by that, but this is Eugene Krabs, known greedy douche. Since Pearl refuses to help, Mr. Krabs asks for some of her clothes.

Back at the Chum Bucket Plankton tells his computer wife Karen about his encounter with Pearl. Despite his clear fear of whales being justified as they have eaten his ancestors, Karen still scoffs at Plankton over being scared of some teenage whale, and tells him to take the trash out. He does so, only to find Pearl popping out of the trash to scare him. His attempts to barricade the laboratory doesn't help either as she scares him some more.

Oh, and Pearl is secretly Mr. Krabs, but you kinda saw that coming from a mile away.

The constant haunting of Plankton goes on for another 16 days, making him more and more paranoid and delusional. He even begins to dream about being eaten alive by Pearl. But at least in the nightmare he gets to visit his ancestors while being half dissolved by stomach acid. With things continuing to mess him up mentally, Plankton has had it.

The next day, Plankton decides that he's finally had enough of the whale visions and lays in the middle of the road so he can be run over. Because, you know, kids love suicide. Spongebob asks what's wrong, and Plankton suggests that Spongebob step on him. However Spongebob won't because that, and I quote, "flies in the face of his good nature". Keep a note of that line because it's going to be rendered pointless very shortly. So, Plankton tells Spongebob to leave him alone, and Spongebob obliges.

So, you won't actively try to kill him, but you will allow him to kill himself. I guess that's what counts as your good nature? What the hell are the writers doing to this show?

Spongebob tells Mr. Krabs about Plankton's suicide attempt, and Mr. Krabs finds it to be hilarious. So, him trying to steal your formula is worse than you assisting in his suicide? Hell, even the old Mr. Krabs was greedy, but lord help me, he was never this evil. He'd just counter Plankton's plans, not try to destroy his life even further. Again, writers, what the hell?

Spongebob tries to tell Mr. Krabs that maybe he's taking things too far, to which Mr. Krabs reminds Spongebob that this was his fault for revealing the location of the formula. Yeah, that's true, but after Plankton was chased off the first time, you couldn't have moved the formula to a safer spot? Wouldn't have been far less effort than trying to make your sworn enemy try to kill himself?

So, Spongebob goes back to the suicidal Plankton and tells him about Mr. Krabs' whole plan to traumatize him, and also tells him about Mr. Krab's secret fear. So, yay, it kind of looks like this will end with Spongebob being able to help Plankton get some revenge, and the episode can end with at least some good feelings. Yeah, if that was the case, this wouldn't have been such a bad episode.

Plankton confronts the disguised Mr. Krabs, and despite his best efforts, Mr.Krabs no longer scares him. Plankton manages to counter him by bringing in a mime, which turns out to be the secret fear of Mr. Krabs. So, it looks like we could end this episode right here. Plankton got his revenge on Krabs, and even somewhat seems to have conquered his fear. But of course Spongebob diverts Plankton's attention...

 with a holographic image of a pod of whales, causing him to run away in suicidal fear again to end the episode. So, you wouldn't step on him because it flies in the face of your good nature, but you'll easily exploit his fear to cause him to likely do himself in? Our heroes ladies and gents, more cruel than the character who's supposed to be the villain.


And that's One Coarse Meal. I get the fact that we're not supposed to have Plankton win, and bad things should happen to him. Yeah, that's all well and good, but this is a case where most of the torment he got wasn't deserved, and the fact that something as serious as suicide was handled in a joking manner. The outcome makes the characters we're supposed to consider the heroes end up like villains.

Like A Pal for Gary, which made Spongebob come off as blind and cruel, this episode made him look just as bad as Mr. Krabs. Zeus Cervas and Casey Alexander have shown so far that they don't get what made Spongebob funny so long ago, and often tried too hard to raise the bar, without thinking about what it would do to the characters they involve. I'm starting to understand the hate for modern Spongebob with each episode I review. And the sad thing is it looks like I have a lot more to go.

Angela Anaconda

My anaconda don't want none

Decode Entertainment: 1999

Sometimes you come across a show that just annoys you. It may not be the worst written, or the worst looking, but everything about it just annoys you. Johnny Test is currently that show that really annoys me because of its inane, awful writing, and its never ending airplay. Well, over a decade ago, the honor of annoying cartoon went solely to that of Angela Anaconda.

Some of you may actually remember that Angela Anaconda first made her presence to the world on an episode of the Nickelodeon show Kablam!, back in the late 90's. Most probably remember Angela Anaconda from that segment at the beginning of the Digimon movie. Yeah, even to this day I have zero clue who thought that Digmon fans were going to be able to tolerate an opening skit with a nasally voiced girl and her revenge fantasies with creepy-as-all hell clip art designs. No wonder Fox Family Channel tanked.

But if you're a Canuck like me, you remember this show from Teletoon. The same Teletoon that currently thinks that Johnny Test needs 40 airings a week. It lasted for a while here, but was actually canned quite quick in the states. Perhaps a lot of that had to be the fact that despite episodes having different settings at times, the biggest problem with this show, other than the creepy art style, was that it literally felt like every episode was the same thing. So, what is the essential plot of every episode, with very little that made you want to come back for more. So, what is this show about?

Angela Anaconda is this tomboy girl with a voice that sounds like a female Urkel. She and her friends, who run the stereotypical gamut of geeky weak boy, overly nice fat girl, and the other kid who's just really dumb, usually try to do something, but are constantly bothered, or impeded in their efforts of fun by Nanette Manoir, a valley girl who acts French, and often kisses up to the show's other antagonist, mean teacher Mrs. Brinks. The episode eventually wraps up with Angela imagining getting revenge on those who wronged her in annoying ways, often making Angela look more petty than in the right.

So, let's get to the design of the show. It's creepy. I don't generally mind the design being clip art, as if done right, it can look pretty cool. But the issue I have is that the people are all gray, and dead looking. Like weird walking corpses that lack any sign of life. Sure some of the world has color, but it feels weird to see in a world with gray, dead looking people. All in all, it's not a pretty sight to look at.

So let's get to the show itself, and see what's wrong with this show. Let's review this thing.

Let's start with the intro. Surely it can't be that...

Well, I'm done. Review over. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here.

Dear god I hate this intro. I get that we're supposed to sell the show on the main character and the conflict, but it could be done far better than without this nasally voiced girl singing somewhat off key about how Nanette is such a stuck up jerk face. It makes it come off less like "Ninny Poo" as Angela refers her to is less the villain as it comes off that she's just really jealous and spiteful.

"Starring me, and not starring Nanette Manoir". Thanks, I was worried it would be about Nanette when they named the show Angela Anaconda.

So, let's look at a couple episodes, starting with what most people remember, the infamous Digimon short. So, if you've seen the Digimon movie, be it either theatrically, or on VHS or DVD, then you've sat through the previews, were ready for big adventure with your favorite digital monsters who are the champions, and then, you get...

This.

Yeah, you thought you were going to jump right in to Digimon, but Fox is all like "screw that, choke down some crappy show on that Family channel of ours you don't watch". And the sad thing is, this wasn't chopped into an extra on the DVD. When you start the movie, you get this first. Why? This has nothing to do with the actual movie. This holds no bearing to anything that actually involves itself in the film. It's not like each of the three stories in the movie will be segued by interstitials hosted by Angela and her friends. This is just them going to see the movie. Because apparently you needed to be reminded that this is a movie. Despite it saying "THE MOVIE" in the title. So let's get into this. It's only about four minutes long, so far less the length of an actual episode.

So we see that Angela and her friends are first in line to see Digimon the Movie, and it's almost time for the show. However, their plans for the best seats in theater get impeded as Nanette Manoir and her rich friends have VIP passes. So, Angela and crew race into the theaters, only to find themselves blocked by Nanette, her friends, and their teacher Mrs. Brinks. So, instead of trying their best to find other seats, Angela begins to imagine.

Oh boy, it's THIS part. The part that really makes me hate Angela. In every episode, she imagines getting really over the top revenge on either Mrs. Brinks, Nanette, or whoever is the antagonist. This time around, she's digivolves to...

Shitty cosplayer-mon?

So, this just leads to a giant fight with Angelamon (I feel like a tool for even writing that), fighting Nanette inside a Mrs. Brinks robot, and her friends beating them down. Yes, they blocked your seats, but considering you had all the time in the world to have chosen those seats before Nanette blocked you, this is more on your end, and your petty dreams of abusing your teacher and some snot kids comes off more as you just being an idiot. And the episode ends with a far more idiotic payoff that, hey, all of the kids went into the wrong theater, and are watching some French film. Ha. It's funny because they were all in a rush and clearly weren't paying attention.

Now that that's out of the way, let's look at an episode from the show, in this case being "Diving Miss Angela"

We open the episode with the class taking a field trip to the knock off Sea World, as Mrs. Brinks scolds Johnny Abotti (the dumb kid I mentioned earlier) for horseplay, as she is more vested in the majestic whales. Hopefully this is more just admiring the creature, and not some Troy McClure ocean creature fetish thing. Due to a contest where whoever catches the ball gets to be whale assistant, Angela lucks out, and gets her opportunity. This turns out successful for Angela.

While Mrs. Brinks and Nanette get soaked because they're the antagonists, so laugh dammit.

Her experience with whale being a success, Angela is now unable to shut the hell up about it, on account of (and for some reason she says "on account of" more than any human being imaginable. Seriously, it's like some really random catchphrase) she now wants to study creatures in the ocean. Well, at least she has a goal, and clearly this won't just be a contrived plot device that will not have any importance by episode's end.

So after receiving some stuff from her Grandma Lou, she goes to the lake and looks around for underwater life, but only finds Nanette Manoir, who is part of a scuba diving class. Since she has experience despite being under 13, she has the right to be here, while Angela can essentially go screw I guess. So, are we supposed to hate Nanette yet? I mean other than petty insults, technically she hasn't done anything monstrous. And in the case of the whole scuba thing, she at least set out to get experience beforehand. Yeah, that has a lot to do with her being rich, but still.

So what follows is a montage of Angela trying to practice scuba diving. From walking underwater, to whatever the hell she's doing in the kitchen of her house, to swimming on a table. But despite training herself, and still sucking hard at it, she's surprisingly still not given a chance to snorkel. Nanette mocks Angela about not having a pool to dive in. Angela pines over this to her grandma, who goes into some segue about holding a manatee wedding. What? When Grandma Lou gives her a diving helmet, Angela suggests the lake, to which Grandma Lou says would be too dangerous. So the best way to do this is, of course...

Sneak into Nanette's place and dive in her pool. Yeah, our heroes ladies and germs. Oh that Nanette is so catty and mean, but since we're in the moral right, we can just try to get away with BREAKING AND ENTERING. The swim practice is cut short as the two are caught by Nanette and her family, and told to leave. But before they can, Angela begins to imagine. Oh boy, I'm sure this couldn't possibly be a very unbalanced punishment she's going to imagine.

In this case, she imagines being a deep sea diver finding the elusive Ninnyfish. With the help of Grandma Lou and the manatees mentioned earlier (I guess there was a point to that), they've captured the Ninnyfish, saving the day, I guess. So, I guess we can just move on with the story, and...

No, of course it couldn't end there. No, she wants to take the Ninnyfish to Oceanland to abuse it, not feed it treats, and force it to marry a shark. And all of this, because she said some bitchy comments and didn't want you swimming in HER POOL? I'm sorry, but this is unbalanced revenge. If Nanette did anything in this episode deserving of any form of retaliation to this degree, then okay, that would make sense. But it doesn't, and it makes Angela look extremely petty, and even more cruel than Nanette. Somehow I think when Angela gets older, it will be less cutesy imagery of what she wants to do to her enemies, and more just extremely violent.

Also, like Doug, does no one notice that Angela kind of goes all silent and still, wondering what she could be thinking of? These imagination flashbacks for the most part always seem like they come off terrible.

So, it turns out that she finds some jewel that fell off Nanette's mother's bracelet, and both Angela and her grandmother are off the hook for, you know, invasion of private property and all. But, when now given the chance to dive, Angela has now decided that she no longer wants to be a scuba diver, or to study undersea life. Nah, she'd rather study geology, making this entire experience all the more pointless.


And that's Angela Anaconda. It's... yeah. The writing is for the most part boring and bland, the animation looks more freaky and ugly than it was intended, and the main character feels more obnoxious than endearing. And my god her imagination is awful, often wanting to dole out a surprisingly unwarranted amount of revenge on someone, coming off more cruel and spiteful than the actual villains of the show. Is Nanette a  bitch? Yes, that can't be disputed. But barely anything she does is often deserving of the punishment Angela wants her to have. So, yeah, it's probably not a show that will drive me insane thinking about it, but it's definitely crap.