Boating School

This is the page about the season 1 episode. For other uses, see Boating School (disambiguation).

Characters

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• Gary the Snail
• Squidward Tentacles Template:Cameo
• Mrs. Puff Template:Debut
• Patrick Star
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  • Fred
  • Incidental 2
  • Incidental 25 Template:Debut
  • Joe Template:Debut
  • Incidental 27 ^{(production order debut)}
  • Incidental 50 Template:Debut

Synopsis

One morning, SpongeBob wakes up excited, as today is his driving exam. He is eager to pass it and finally get his driver's license. He happily rides to Mrs. Puff's Boating School on his unicycle, then throws it away under the assumption that he will no longer need it. Having taken the oral exam 37 times before, SpongeBob is able to answer most of the questions before Mrs. Puff even asks them. However, upon reaching the driving portion, SpongeBob gets nervous and quickly loses control of the boat, crashing into a lighthouse and causing Mrs. Puff's body to inflate.

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"Oh, SpongeBob... why?"

Later that night, SpongeBob complains about his failure to Gary, who asks him to go for a walk, which he declines. Patrick is then heard talking to him from a walkie-talkie under his covers. He asks SpongeBob to head to his library for a "surprise," and SpongeBob finds Patrick wearing his clothes and calling himself "Patrick SquarePants." SpongeBob is too depressed to laugh at this, and explains his problem to Patrick, mentioning that he needs someone to help him "think straight" during the driving test. Patrick quickly devises a plan. Using a cowboy hat to hide the antenna, he puts a walkie-talkie inside SpongeBob's head so he can offer advice.

File:Boating School 153.png

The next day, SpongeBob goes back to take the test again. When asked to start the boat, he initially panics, but Patrick's instructions keep him calm. Just after SpongeBob puts the boat in drive, he almost floors the pedal, but Patrick stops him just before his foot touches the pedal. Patrick then tells him to use his big toe on the pedal, and SpongeBob's toe pops out of his shoe to gently press the pedal. This is followed by a montage of SpongeBob acing the exam, interspersed with shots of Patrick eating SpongeBob's food and reading his diary while helping him.

Mrs. Puff is floored by SpongeBob's sudden improvement and jokingly suggests that his success is due to an antenna under his hat through which "some guy miles away from here" is giving him the answers. SpongeBob (and Patrick) finds this hilarious until Mrs. Puff tells SpongeBob it would be cheating to do so. Upon realizing he has been cheating, SpongeBob goes into hysterics, followed by Patrick. Devastated and ashamed about what he has done, Patrick flees to his house, crying. At the same time, SpongeBob starts driving wildly all over the course and sobbing, while Mrs. Puff, in a panic, tries desperately to stop him. But SpongeBob is too distraught to listen and crashes the boat, failing the test and causing Mrs. Puff to inflate once again. Later, SpongeBob apologizes for the accident to a still-inflated Mrs. Puff, who gets shoved into an ambulance, and promises to do better next semester as she is taken away to the hospital. As SpongeBob begins leaving boating school, he finds Gary riding his unicycle. SpongeBob, with Gary atop his head, happily rides off on it to visit the hospital.

Production

Creation of Mrs. Puff

Original concept art by Stephen Hillenburg.

Early sketches of the puffer sub driver.

The idea for Mrs. Puff and her Boating School was what "saved" the show from being passed on by Nickelodeon. If Stephen Hillenburg (the series' creator) did not fulfill Nickelodeon's request that SpongeBob attends a school, they would not have agreed to greenlight the first season.

Mrs. Puff was the last one of the main characters to be created and designed by Stephen Hillenburg. She had not been created yet when Hillenburg finished his series bible, a book outlining the show's main concepts and setting. The June 2003 issue of Nickelodeon Magazine states that when Hillenburg pitched SpongeBob to Nickelodeon, he "had yet to come up with the idea that Mrs. Puff and SpongeBob would be on an endless quest to get SpongeBob a driver's license." Thus, some early development artwork for the show depicted SpongeBob driving a submarine-Esque vehicle with ease, and the theme song even depicts SpongeBob driving four different vehicles. To account for her absence, a sketch was captioned "The gang's all here (almost!)."

After Hillenburg pitched the pilot episode, Nickelodeon executives did not immediately approve production and wanted to instate a major creative change: making SpongeBob a child who went to school. Hillenburg specifically said the following in a 2009 interview: "At the beginning people give you notes, and you have to fight back. It was a new show and no-one knows if a new show will work. Nick had decided it didn't want any more animal shows and wanted stories with kids, like Hey Arnold! They actually wanted to make 'Arnold under the sea' and make SpongeBob a child. I said 'no, that's not the show'. I said we'll show the parents sometimes and put him in school – but it would be a [boat] driving school." Additionally, they wanted every episode to focus on his school life.

Hillenburg ended up "making concessions" with Nickelodeon by coming up with a driving school. This way, SpongeBob could regularly attend a school while remaining age ambiguous. In 2012, he recalled that his compromise eventually improved the series: "A positive thing for me that came out of it was... it brings in a new character, Mrs. Puff, who I love." He explained that she added "a new aspect to the show" that he wouldn't have found otherwise.

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A recording script for this episode was drafted on August 24, 1998. The finished master was delivered to Nickelodeon Animation Studio on July 6, 1999.

Art

• Title card background.
  Title card background.
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• File:Mrs-Puff-Boating-School-testing-boat-art.png
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• File:Boating-School-SpongeBob-and-Mrs-Puff.jpg
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• File:BG-Mrs-Puff-Boating-School-finish-line.png
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• File:Sleep sb bs.png
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• File:Lucky sb bs.png
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Script

• On November 14, 2016, recording scripts for every episode from season 1 were publicly released, found on one of the asset discs for the PlayStation video game, SuperSponge. This included the recording script for "Boating School."

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• File:Episode104Script1.jpg
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Release

Distribution

• This episode is available on the Nickelodeon DVD Sampler, Lost at Sea, SpongeBob Schwammkopf Folge 2, Complete 1st Season, The 1st Season: Volume 1, The Best of SpongeBob SquarePants, SpongeBob 1, SpongeBob on DVD, Jellyfishing, Tea at the Treedome, Jellyfishing (Greece), Beach Bob, First 100 Episodes, SpongeBob SquarePants, iSponge Offer Pack, Exposed!: The Ultimate Box Set, The Ultimate SpongeBob Box Set, SpongeBob SquarePants Vol. 1, Employee of the Month, The Complete First Season, From the Beginning, Part 1, The SpongeBob SquarePants Collection, Driving Bikini Bottom Crazy!, The SpongeBob SquarePants 8 Season DVD Collection, The First & Second Seasons, Movies & TV Collection, The Best 200 Episodes Ever, and The Best 300 Episodes Ever DVDs and on VideoNow and also on the Lost at Sea and The Sponge Who Could Fly VHS tapes.

Trivia

General

• This episode uses the same title card track as its sister episode.
  • However, different portions of the music are used.
• Mrs. Puff inflates whenever surviving a boating crash, similar to how an airbag of an automobile inflates if it crashes.
• The assistance that Patrick gives to SpongeBob throughout the boating exam is done by radio communication, almost like how assistance is given out to a race car driver by a crew chief or spotter of that driver.
• Immediately after puffing, Mrs. Puff speaks with a deep voice. However, when the paramedics put her into the ambulance at the end of the episode, she speaks with her usual voice.
  • In episodes like "Pranks a Lot," Mrs. Puff speaks with her normal voice even when she is inflated.
  • In "Sandy's Rocket," however, she speaks with a deep voice when inflated.
• When SpongeBob comes out of the boating school at the end of the episode, he says Gary found his bike; however, it is a unicycle.
• This is the first episode for several things:
  • The first episode to play "Hawaiian Adventures aka SpongeBob Theme," "Hello Blues," "Cream Pie," and "Dramatic Impact (6)."
  • The first appearance of Mrs. Puff and her boating school.
  • The first episode to feature the famous running gag of Fred yelling out "My leg!:" when SpongeBob crashes a lighthouse on the first attempt and the second attempt right after Mrs. Puff says, "Oh, SpongeBob, why?"
    • Interestingly, Fred makes a physical appearance walking with a cane during the second attempt.
    • The episode "My Leg!" references this episode.
  • The first episode where SpongeBob's blanket is its current purple color instead of its original aqua-teal shade. However, there would be a few later episodes that revert it to its original color, notably "Squeaky Boots" and "Sandy's Rocket."
  • The first episode to have SpongeBob's bed placed on the left side of the bedroom.
  • The first appearance of SpongeBob's library.
  • The first time Patrick cries.
  • The first episode, in production order, with no known deleted scenes.
• There is a LEGO set called "Mrs. Puff's Boating School (4982)" which is based on this episode.
• There is a book based on this episode named Don't Rock the Boat!
  • There are also two online games based on this episode called Boating School (online game) and Boat-O-Cross.
• A clip from this episode was shown on a car TV in a 2008 Dodge commercial.
• This episode was previously paired up with:
  • "Hall Monitor" during the Nicktoons Creepy Teacher Marathon event, during the Back to School with SpongeBob event on September 4, 2012, and on September 8, 2012.
  • "Survival of the Idiots" on March 17, 2004.
  • "Doing Time" on November 17, 2012.
  • "No Free Rides" on October 21, 2017.
  • "Grandma's Kisses" during the SpongeBob SmartyPants event on January 3, 2020.
  • "Mrs. Puff, You're Fired" on December 1, 2020.

Dub facts

• In the Filipino dub, Mrs. Puff's voice isn't low pitched when SpongeBob crashes the boat at the lighthouse.
  • This mistake also happens in the Filipino dub version of "Sandy's Rocket."

Cultural references

• One of SpongeBob's answers is "1924," which likely refers to the year the British submarine L24 sunk in the English Channel.

Errors

File:Erik Weise error.jpg

Should be written as "Erik Wiese."

• In the opening credits, when Erik Wiese is credited as a writer, his name is misspelled as Erik Weise.
• In this episode, SpongeBob's alarm clock blows in a different, higher-pitched tone. Usually, it blows in the key of F, but in this episode, it does so in the key of B♭ (or A#).
  • This also happens in the video games Battle for Bikini Bottom and Battle for Bikini Bottom: Rehydrated and the episode "Blackened Sponge."
• The order of obstacles is different than the first view seen when SpongeBob first arrives.
• Mrs. Puff's helmet changes. When she puts it on, it barely covers her head, and her hair is clearly visible. When SpongeBob is shaking, it is bigger and covers all of her hair.
• When Fred says, "My leg!," the lighthouse falls to the right side, but the pictures of the scene show the lighthouse falls on the left side.
• When SpongeBob crashes the first time, he does not put the boat into drive.
• SpongeBob's alarm clock changes color. The face is light blue, but when shown again as SpongeBob is talking to Gary, it turns dark blue.
• When SpongeBob enters his library room he uses a slide, but it disappears once he sits down.

File:Boating School 088.png

SpongeBob's extra fingers on his right hand.

• After Patrick places the cowboy hat on SpongeBob's head, SpongeBob has five fingers on his right hand instead of four.
• After Patrick places the cowboy hat on SpongeBob's head, a bubble transition sound effect is heard, yet no such transition occurs (with the scene cutting to the next scene instead).
• When SpongeBob is seated in the chair in the library room it is black, but when Patrick sits there it is purple; it later changes black again.
• When Patrick asks, "Got the apple," his shorts disappear for a frame.
• When SpongeBob moos while "acting natural," his bottom-right front hole disappears for two frames.
• When SpongeBob is about to shift the boat to drive, his arm briefly turns gray.
• There is a number on the boat, but when SpongeBob goes around the flag, the number disappears.
• The boat seemed close to the finish line when Mrs. Puff mentions cheating, but during the close-ups of herself and SpongeBob, it seemed to take several seconds to get there before SpongeBob panics.

File:SpongeBob's Missing Window.png

Two errors in one: SpongeBob's house is missing one of the windows and there's a blue line around Patrick's rock.

• When Patrick goes back to his house panicking, SpongeBob's house is missing a window.
  • In the same shot, there is a blue line around one side of Patrick's house that overlaps the ground near it.
• At the end of the episode, SpongeBob's unicycle is not on the path, but floating above it and its shadow is there instead.

File:Naughty Nautical Neighbors and Boating School credits.png

Incidental 27 credited as "customer."

• Although Doug Lawrence is credited as "customer" in the closing credits for this episode, the character he voiced is actually called Incidental 27, who never buys anything during the episode, making the casting list inaccurate.

Videos

• File:Boating School ⛵ in Five Minutes - SpongeBob
• File:SpongeBob Fails His Boating Test w Mrs. Puff 🛥 SpongeBob
• File:"12 Days of Spongemas" Music Video 🎄 - New SpongeBob Holiday Song

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning
Dutch	Vaarschool	Sailing School
French	Le permis de conduire	Driver's License
German	Prüfungsangst	Exam Anxiety
Hebrew	רישיון נהיגה Rishayon Nehiga	Driver's License
Hungarian	A vizsga	The Exam
Italian	L'esame di guida	The Driving Test
Polish	Szkoła jazdy	Driving School
Russian	Школа управления катерами Shkola upravleniya katerami	Boat Driving School
Spanish (American)	Escuela de navegación	Sailing School
Spanish (European)	La escuela de navegación	The Sailing School