Cartoon Crapisodes Rant: Episode 10 - The Clash of Triton

You all know how I'm a pretty huge Sword Art Online fan, right? As such, I get really irritated when I constantly hear criticisms of the anime such as "over-hyped", "disappointing", or "wasted potential". Let me tell you something. Those same exact criticisms that I mentioned earlier would be three words that I would use to describe the episode The Clash of Triton. Now when I tried looking up the episode's reception on Wikipedia, I was quite surprised that it mostly got mixed to positive feedback. When I read that, the first two words that popped into my head were, "Wait, what?" For an episode that had commercials that were constantly hyping up everyone about this epic clash between SpongeBob and Triton, that had an online game named SpongeBob SquarePants: Clash of Triton on Nick.com based off this episode that was an addictive 2-D side-scrolling beat-em-up, that had attracted 5.2 million viewers when it was first aired, and that it had been featured in a DVD titled Triton's Revenge, this episode should have lived up to expectations, right? Here's a simple one-word answer to that question: NO. You're probably asking me right now, "Are you sure?" Here's another one-word answer to that question: YES. Welcome, happy people of TheTopTens. This is ModernSpongeBobSucks here, and today, we're here with the first season finale to the Cartoon Crapisodes Rant post series. For the 10th episode in this post series, I will be ranting on the episode The Clash of Triton, written by Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas, Aaron Springer, Steven Banks, and Paul Tibbitt, which aired in Season 6. Ah, Season 6... the first of the trilogy of the worst SpongeBob SquarePants seasons ever. My favorite YouTuber Black Critic Guy likes SpongeBob SquarePants a lot and is a really huge fan of it, and even he says this show is a sinking ship! I can only hope that the seasons after the second SpongeBob SquarePants movie continue to be mostly good. So, if you're still wondering why I don't like The Clash of Triton, then you're about to find out!

The Clash of Triton kicks off with showing King Neptune lying in bed depressed and watching daytime television. His wife Queen Amphitrite comes and turns off the television set, asking if he's acting this way because today is his 5,000th birthday and he's getting older by the year... is this even supposed to be The Clash of Triton? Oh wait, the original title of this episode was supposed to be Neptune's Party! Complete with the title card for it having been done prior to Neptune's Party being changed to The Clash of Triton! And this, kids, is why you never procrastinate at the last minute whenever you do an essay! Anyways, King Neptune replies that he's depressed because he's sad that he won't be able to see his son Triton at his birthday. Queen Amphitrite tells King Neptune to forget about Triton for today, and King Neptune agrees to do so as long as no one mentions Triton's name.

The episode then cuts to the Krusty Krab, where SpongeBob is up to his usual antics as he gives Squidward an order of a Krabby Patty using his nose. Squidward ignores this and proceeds to give the order to a strange-looking fish customer, where SpongeBob then reveals he was the strange-looking fish customer and jumps out of his costume, saying he's not using his hands because it's "Work Without Your Hands Day". Hmm, reminds me of when my father said he no longer wants to order from one certain Burger King joint near me again since one of the employees didn't have gloves on their hands when making one of my orders. Eh, I'm getting off topic here. Getting back to our plot discussion, SpongeBob goes into the kitchen and then hears the phone ringing. SpongeBob picks up the phone and Queen Amphitrite comes on and tells him that she wants to hold King Neptune's birthday party at the Krusty Krab. SpongeBob gives the phone to Mr. Krabs, where Mr. Krabs then tells Queen Amphitrite off and hangs up on her, believing her to be a prank caller. Queen Amphitrite gets enraged by this and literally bursts into the Krusty Krab's roof and zaps Mr. Krabs. Mr. Krabs then agrees to hold the birthday party at 7:00 PM tonight. SpongeBob proceeds to go and literally cook 5,000 patties, but not before raising his spatula and letting it shine in all its glory, before telling Patrick to turn off the flashlight he was using along with his wobble board for the light. Hey, wait... Didn't it go pitch-black dark when Patrick turned off the flashlight? Well, in the commercials, THEY DID! In the actual episode, THEY DIDN'T! Ladies and gentlemen, things can only get worse from here.

So while the decorations are being finished and the Krabby Patties are finally done, Mr. Krabs then rolls out a red carpet for King Neptune's arrival, where a fish named Shubie comes and then asks if she can watch the royal family of King Neptune eat through the front of the Krusty Krab's windows. Hey, lady, I'm here to watch SpongeBob clash with Triton, not to watch some people stuff themselves with greasy fast food! That is, unless I'm watching the YouTuber Furious Pete, which I'm not doing right now. Moving on, Mr. Krabs gets the idea of charging customers to let them watch the royal family of King Neptune eat at the Krusty Krab. King Neptune then arrives with his wife Queen Amphitrite along with a group of monsters and is greeted happily by the crowd of fish waiting to watch him eat. Things seem to be going well for King Neptune until SpongeBob brings up Triton's name from a list and points out that there was a reserved seat for him, complete with his name card on it! Well, we've already found our first plot hole already! The SpongeBob wikia clearly stated it is unknown why King Neptune even put Triton's name on the list in the first place if he didn't want him to be mentioned. Those were my exact thoughts as well. With that out of the way, King Neptune then proceeds to show a long and forgettable movie about his past with Triton. The movie is basically about how Triton didn't want to be an almighty god like his father King Neptune and wanted to be like a mortal instead. Eventually, his views would conflict with his father and would grow rebellious, where King Neptune then imprisoned him in a cage at the Island in the Sky, leaving him there until he learned how to be a god like his father. Trust me, it's not as good as I'm describing it to be. The movie ends there and King Neptune begins sobbing, where his wife Queen Amphitrite then tells Mr. Krabs to put the Krabby Patties he was about to serve to King Neptune away. The customers watching King Neptune's birthday party are about to leave when they see that Mr. Krabs foolishly doesn't listen and gets zapped by her. Wow, this is probably the closest we'll ever get to legitimate comedic appeal in this episode. Now where's my clash of Triton?!

Wanting to cheer up King Neptune, SpongeBob goes to the Island in the Sky to free Triton from his cage. Meanwhile, Mr. Krabs has Squidward entertain the customers with his clarinet playing, much to their dismay, even more so when Mr. Krabs resorts to his no-refunds policy. Back at the Island in the Sky, SpongeBob is then seen sleeping and is awoken by a toenail clipping dropping on his head, which leads him to a rope where he uses it to lower down the cage holding Triton. SpongeBob talks with Triton and attempts to try to undo the lock on his cage. SpongeBob finds this task to be difficult and literally calls Patrick from a telephone booth to have him help undo the lock for him. Patrick is able to undo the lock with ease (by just peeling the stickers of the squares off and putting them into their right positions). Triton is then freed and turns the cage into a sports car. He takes SpongeBob and Patrick for a "ride" back to the Krusty Krab for King Neptune's birthday when he then ditches them in the middle of the road. Back at the Krusty Krab, Mr. Krabs is still trying to get King Neptune to eat his Krabby Patties, but to no avail. Mr. Krabs tries to get Squidward to play his clarinet again until Triton bursts into the Krusty Krab with his sports car. Triton imprisons King Neptune and everyone around him excluding the fish watching him and tells his father that he's no longer interested in mortals. Triton then flies through the Krusty Krab's roof, destroys Bikini Bottom, and zaps his name on the ground, laughing in all his glory. Yawn... are we at the clash of Triton yet?!

SpongeBob and Patrick eventually arrive to see that all of Bikini Bottom is destroyed. SpongeBob and Patrick then enter the Krusty Krab through a secret entrance that leads them to the inside of the stove in the kitchen. SpongeBob tells Patrick to be quiet, where Patrick then accidentally throws the stove top and causes a lot of noise. I may have gotten a clash all right, but is it the clash of Triton?! Speaking of Triton, SpongeBob and Patrick then see Triton eating the Krabby Patties. Mr. Krabs sobs at this, but sobs even more when King Neptune told him he wasn't going to pay for them anyway. SpongeBob and Patrick then come up with a plan to free King Neptune and the rest of the people caged with him. They do so by using the stove they came out of earlier as a disguise and sneak past Triton. Patrick undoes the lock on the cage and then everyone is set free. Can I get my damn clash of Triton right now?! So now that King Neptune along with everyone else has been released, Triton proceeds to flee and escape until he is stopped in his tracks by King Neptune. King Neptune then sees all the destruction that Triton caused. Triton thinks he's going to be sent back to the cage again as punishment for defying his father and destroying Bikini Bottom until... King Neptune is actually happy about it? King Neptune tells his son that he just gave him the best 5,000th birthday gift ever by finally learning how to act like a god. King Neptune and Triton then hug each other as they finally reunite as father and son.

Yay! This was such a touching moment like I have never seen before in a SpongeBob SquarePants episode! I don't know why so many people hate this episode! It really lived up to the expectations that I had from the days I saw its commercials and played that awesome online game! Come on, people, get with the times! The father and son reunion was so much better than just a boring battle between SpongeBob and Triton! I thought it was heartwarming! This episode wasn't as bad as I thought! You know what, I'm probably gonna go ahead and give my final score for this episode:

8.0 out of 10.0 stars

Next episode: Cartoon Crapisodes Rant: Episode 11 - The Return of Slade

Until then, peace!

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PSYCH, MONGRELS!!! What the hell did you think I was talking about?! This Cartoon Crapisodes Rant isn't over just yet! Anyways, everyone is cheering at King Neptune's and Triton's reunion as King Neptune leaves with Triton and Queen Amphitrite in his carriage, feeling satisfied and no longer feeling the need to stay at the party at the Krusty Krab. King Neptune thanks Mr. Krabs for everything he's done for him for his birthday along with SpongeBob as well, saying that none of this would have happened if it weren't for his actions. SpongeBob feels touched by how King Neptune said everything happened because of him. Then, everyone forms a mob and starts chasing SpongeBob and Patrick due to them being responsible for the destruction Triton caused, ending the episode once and for all.

... That's it? That's supposed to be The Clash of Triton? Nickelodeon, let me tell you one thing: STOP MAKING RATINGS TRAPS! Seriously, it's like that with every new SpongeBob "special" episode that they advertise! Hey, Band Geeks wasn't heavily advertised and people loved that episode, right? I can bet over a thousand dollars that Nickelodeon actually wastes more of an episode's quality into making advertisements for the episode rather than the episode itself! It's not about the advertising, Nickelodeon! It's about the episode itself! That said, I actually have a few pros about this episode. Now to be honest, there were some moments in the episode that actually made me crack up a lot, ranging from the running gag of Queen Amphitrite zapping Mr. Krabs whenever he made her get mad to a few comedic moments from SpongeBob and Patrick (though not quite all of them). Not to mention that this episode wasn't mean-spirited and that going back to the running gag with Queen Amphitrite zapping Mr. Krabs, it came off as more funny than mean-spirited to me, which is what you really want whenever you're observing slapstick comedy. However, despite all the comedic moments and jokes that I thought were funny from this episode, it's just not enough to save this episode. First of all, let me repeat this again: THERE IS NO CLASH OF TRITON! This episode is so inconsistent with its own title! Again, why couldn't they have just kept it as Neptune's Party?! Speaking of that, people might be asking me, "Hey, MSBS. The episode wouldn't have been bad if it had been named Neptune's Party as it should have been, right?" Sorry, but regardless if the episode had kept its original name, it's still bad for what it is! My second problem with this episode is how the plot feels like it had lost its sense of direction and doesn't know where to go! Is the episode about King Neptune's birthday party? About SpongeBob going up against Triton? About trying to reunite King Neptune and Triton with each other? To be honest, if each of them were used individually in separate episodes, they could work out and be well-executed if they stood out as a single plot on their own. Unfortunately, everything almost feels like each of the writers had different ideas about how to execute the episode, only for them to jam all their ideas into one rushed episode just to get some cheap ratings! Finally, my final problem with this episode is the resolution to this episode. Now I can see the writers were at least trying hard with King Neptune's reunion with Triton, but due to there not being much build-up as to how King Neptune and Triton eventually reunite with each other, it feels rather forced. Also, since SpongeBob is pinned as being responsible for Triton's destruction of Bikini Bottom, though it's supposed to come off as comedic, all it did for me was make me feel like this whole episode was pointless!

I can't believe this. From fighting a Cerberus Sandy, Kraken Squidward, Minotaur Patrick, Scorpius Krabs, and Triton himself, it still frustrates me how Nickelodeon tricked me with getting me to play such a great online game into watching a bland episode. This episode may not be as bad as on the level of episodes such as One Coarse Meal or A Pal for Gary, but it sure is one of the biggest letdowns in the entire show. It was already bad as it was, but it was made even worse when its main plot was made up by commercials! Now here is my true final score for this episode:

4.0 out of 10.0 stars

Next episode: Cartoon Crapisodes Rant: Episode 11 - The Return of Slade

Until then, peace!

Comments

Are you taking requests now? - RalphBob (8/12/2016)

I'm kind of listening to a few requests now. - visitor (8/12/2016)

If you get time, can you do The Hunt for Ziro from Star Wars: The Clone Wars? The only reason that isn't on my remix of worst episodes of good series is because I didn't update it yet. - RalphBob (8/12/2016)

Maybe, but I don't think it's likely I'll review that episode soon. I can't guarantee I'll review it. - visitor (8/12/2016)

What other reviews will you (possibly) create. - RalphBob (8/12/2016)

I might make a character rant post series where I rant on characters that I hate. Also, I plan to do a rant post on Foodfight!, but don't expect me to start doing movie reviews routinely. - visitor (8/12/2016)

However, I might do positive movie reviews for anime movies. - visitor (8/14/2016)

Character Rant Series?

COUGH COUGH PATRICK STAR COUGH COUGH MR. KRABS COUGH COUGH. - DCfnaf (11/21/2016)

Good rant, I don't like the episode, and I wasn't excited for it, but the commercials made me want to watch it, I now don't like the episode. - Skullkid755 (8/13/2016)

Don't forget the online game as well. The episode itself was nowhere as great as that awesome 2-D side-scrolling beat-em-up. - visitor (8/13/2016)

I remember playing Clash of Triton online game back then, it was really fun 2-D side-scrolling beat'em up. But when I saw this episode, I was quite disappointed. I expected Spongebob taking actions but nope, what I saw was boredom. What a bland episode. - Delgia2k (8/14/2016)

Yeah. - visitor (8/14/2016)

Once you rant about The Return of Slade, I'll give you some crap to rant about:

Yours, Mine, and Mine
Pet Sitter Pat

My 3rd and 4th least favorite episodes. You can probably figure out my Top 2. Patrick is probably one of my all time least favorite characters. In fact, I think I hate him more than Brian from Family Guy. - DCfnaf (11/21/2016)

I would like to rant on Yours, Mine, and Mine and Pet Sitter Pat after ranting on The Return of Slade, but I actually have other plans...

I've decided that after ranting on The Return of Slade, I'll rant on the Christmas episode Dexter vs. Santa's Claws from Dexter's Laboratory as a Christmas special post. - visitor (11/27/2016)

Don't worry, I'll try to rant on Yours, Mine, and Mine and Pet Sitter Pat after I rant on Dexter vs. Santa's Claws. - visitor (11/30/2016)

Ok, col. you might as well do other shows. And if you want to do other shows, why not that terrible fairly oddparents season? "The big fairy share scare" or whatever. - DCfnaf (12/4/2016)