A Life in a Day
Original air date: 6/4/2008 (produced in 2007)
Patrick tries to be a daredevil just like Larry, but it's too much for SpongeBob.
A Life in a Day contains examples of:
- Advice Backfire: Larry declares he lives every day as if it was his last and tells SpongeBob and Patrick they should do the same and start "living like Larry." While Larry meant that they should live their lives to the fullest, Sponge and Pat take his advice literally and start performing life-threatening daredevil stunts just as he does, eventually landing themselves and Larry in the hospital.
- An Aesop:
- Don't take things too seriously, even if it means taking risks.
- Doing dangerous things come with dangerous consequences.
- Air Quotes: SpongeBob does these a few times throughout the episode.
- Arc Words: "Livin' like Larry."
- Chased Off into the Sunset: The episode ends with the wheelchair-clad SpongeBob being chased by Larry on crutches out of the hospital to parts unknown.
- Downer Ending: SpongeBob, Patrick, and Larry are all in the hospital with full body casts at the end of the episode due to crashing into Ripper’s Reef. It wasn't a Downer Ending for SpongeBob until Larry angrily chases him out of the hospital for the mess he got the group into.
- Got Me Doing It: SpongeBob eventually starts feeling the daredevil vibe that Patrick had and sets himself and Patrick into a stunt of his own.
- Idiot Ball: While SpongeBob wouldn't have cared, Patrick and Larry still have no excuses for not quickly getting off the giant arrow before it hit Ripper's Reef.
- I Will Show You X!: While Patrick and Larry lay injured in the hospital, SpongeBob shows up and invites them for another dangerous stunt, asking what would Larry do. After this, Larry angrily asks, "'What would Larry do?!' I'll show you what Larry would do!" and chases SpongeBob on crutches.
- Literal Metaphor: When SpongeBob defends Patrick from the biker gang, he claims that Patrick has become a hollow shell of his former self. It then cuts to the wind blowing through Patrick's now hollow body.
- Literal-Minded: Both Patrick and SpongeBob took Larry's words way too literally.
- Motorcycle Dominoes: While SpongeBob is asking what made the biker gang all cranky after Patrick has enough of trying to live like Larry, he accidentally knocks all of the motorbikes in this effect. The bikers state that Patrick did exactly that to tick them off, resulting in them knocking SpongeBob in the air from the motorcycle circle.
- Never My Fault: Larry gets angry at SpongeBob and Patrick for taking his advice too seriously and putting them all in the hospital after a dangerous stunt. However, the reason they (mainly Patrick, before SpongeBob started to join in) decided to start "living like Larry" was because Larry publicly humiliated the two in front of the beachgoers, categorically saying, "You can't live like those two, just look at them!", before pointing out all their flaws in their current lifestyle. If Larry hadn't shamed them so harshly in front of everyone, they likely wouldn't have resolved to start living a more dangerous lifestyle (even if they took it too far).
- Oh, Crap!: While Larry expresses how proud he is of SpongeBob and Patrick now living life to the fullest, he realizes that the stunt they're about to pull is going to seriously hurt them and rushes over to stop them, but it was too late. While trying to stop them, he told them what he really meant by living like him.Larry: Look guys, my advice wasn't meant to be taken literally, I meant to live life to the fullest, not to maim yourselves!
- Series Continuity Error: In this episode, SpongeBob and Patrick are shown to not know who Larry is, but in previous episodes, they do.
- Shout-Out:
- The title is a parody of The Beatles song "A Day in the Life."
- SpongeBob accidentally knocking over the bikers' motorcycles is a reference to a similar scene from Pee-wee's Big Adventure.
- Skewed Priorities: After Larry hooks onto the arrow SpongeBob and Patrick are riding on, he tells them they were taking his advice too seriously before saying they’re about to crash into Ripper’s Reef.
- Spiritual Antithesis: To Prehibernation Week. Patrick takes Larry's ideals literally and performs crazy and hazardous stunts, treating each day as if it’s his last. SpongeBob is against the idea, but unlike his Prehibernation Week with Sandy, he gradually becomes an adrenaline junkie and goes completely insane.
- The Unreveal: It is unknown how SpongeBob, Patrick, and Larry were rescued after crashing into Ripper’s Reef.
Sun Bleached
Original air date: 6/5/2008 (produced in 2007)
SpongeBob and Patrick tan themselves to enter a beach party for tan people only, but SpongeBob ends up sun bleached.
Sun Bleached contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: When a woman's young son is banned from the party for having tan lines, she just scolds him and allows Craig to throw him into the trash with the other rejected guests.
- An Aesop: Don't feel pressured to look like everyone else.
- Bittersweet Ending: Played for Laughs. When everybody at the party decides to crank up the tanning lights to become sun bleached, it results in everyone turning to ash under the hot lamps. Though if SpongeBob and Patrick are any indication, they're all probably still alive. It all goes right back to normal in the next episode.
- Chick Magnet: Patrick becomes one after getting tanned, to the point of being whisked away by a group of girls and forgetting that SpongeBob is still in the tanning bed.
- *Cough* Snark *Cough*: A fish at the beach does this while calling SpongeBob and Patrick "losers".
- Cutaway Gag: After getting tanned, Patrick remarks that he feels "like one of those hip young old folks from a soda commercial". It then cuts to a fake live-action commercial of a tanned old guy advertising soda.
- Dressed in Layers: Prior to using the tanning bed, Patrick tears off his shorts to reveal a Speedo underneath.
- Eye Scream: Upon seeing SpongeBob's sun bleached skin, a fish's eyes melt out of his head and he passes out.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: At the party, one of the tan settings on the remote is labeled "Nuke".
- Instant Costume Change: SpongeBob changes from his square pants to a Speedo by simply jumping in the air and having his pants magically change on his body.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Craig Mammalton and the other tan fish who tormented SpongeBob and Patrick at the beginning of the episode get burnt to ashes at the end of the episode from the bright lights. This can also be considered karma for Patrick for keeping SpongeBob in the tanning bed for too long, although him and SpongeBob don’t seem to mind too much when they dry up too.
- Medium-Shift Gag: The fake live-action soda commercial.
- Never My Fault: While Patrick tries to help SpongeBob after he is “sun bleached,” Patrick doesn’t admit he was wrong or apologize to SpongeBob for keeping him in the tanning bed too long.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Craig Mammalton is an obvious parody of George Hamilton.
- Trapped In a Tanning Bed: SpongeBob and Patrick are trying to get tan enough to join a party only very tanned fish can go to, so they visit a tanning bed. Patrick goes first and gets perfectly tanned, but he leaves SpongeBob in the bed for two hours, resulting in SpongeBob being completely bleached by the light. He tries to cover this up by slathering himself in caramel, but when the caramel dries off and breaks, his sun bleached form is revealed — and it actually amazes everyone, as he's considered the most hardcore tanner of them all.
- Visual Pun: SpongeBob and Patrick tell Craig Mammalton they are putting on coats of sunscreen to stay protected from the sun, and the time comes to put on another coat. They literally make coats, as in outerwear, out of sunscreen and put them on, along with a top hat and walking stick to match.
