Recycled Script: The episode has quite a few similarities to the Rocket Power episode "It Was a Dark and Stormy Day" — both episodes take place on a rainy night with the main characters assuming that someone else was killed and mostly take place in the Local Hangout restaurant of the series (Krusty Krab/Shore Shack) the cops get involved and both end with an "Everybody Laughs" Ending with the cops and main characters hanging out in the restaurant.
What Could Have Been: The storyboard animatic has quite a number of differences from the final episode. Of note, the episode begins with SpongeBob being the one to first encounter the Health Inspector without knowing who he is, it ends with the Health Inspector passing the Krusty Krab because he thought he was in a food coma, which he takes as a sign of quality food, before hugging SpongeBob, Mr. Krabs, and the cops, and "Open Cash Register Night" is suspected to be a bribe.
Officer John: Hey, is this some sort of bribe?! Mr. Krabs: In fast food, we prefer to call it a promotion.
Not long after this episode aired, flat-screen TV sets began displacing bulkier older models like the one seen in "Idiot Box". This confines its production within The Aughts, when most TV sets were large enough for people to fit inside their packaging.
When Squidward tries to figure out how the box works, his initial assumption is that SpongeBob and Patrick are playing back sounds using a tape recorder, and he refuses to believe that they don't have one. Within ten years of the episode's airing, they would have been able to find and play all those sound effects on a smartphone, and any objection to the effect of "We don't have a phone" would have been very hard to swallow.
has quite a number of differences from the final episode. Of note, the episode begins with SpongeBob being the one to first encounter the Health Inspector without knowing who he is, it ends with the Health Inspector passing the Krusty Krab because he thought he was in a food coma, which he takes as a sign of quality food, before hugging SpongeBob, Mr. Krabs, and the cops, and "Open Cash Register Night" is suspected to be a bribe.Officer John: Hey, is this some sort of bribe?!