Best Frenemies

Characters

• Eugene H. Krabs
• Squidward Tentacles
• Incidental 37B
• Template:Data:Links
• Incidental 37A
• Incidental 36
• Incidental 41
• Incidental 46
• Incidental 6
• Incidental 92
• Incidental 73
• Incidental 45
• Incidental 13
• Incidental 48
• Incidental 108
• Incidental 106
• Incidental 27
• Incidental 9
• Incidental 82
• Old Man Jenkins
• Incidental 155
• Sandals
• Scooter
• Incidental 31
• Incidental 40
• Pearl Krabs
• Sheldon J. Plankton
• Incidental 102
• Incidental 49
• Fred
• Incidental 104
• Incidental 105
• Incidental 107
• Incidental 20
• Incidental 103
• Incidental 119
• Guard worm
• Security system voice Template:Debut
• Incidental 68
• Kelpshake cashier Template:Debut
• Incidental 153
• Incidental 42
• Incidental 67
• Incidental 151
• Incidental 2
• Incidental 16
• Incidental 23
• Incidental 5
• Incidental 24
• Incidental 15
• Incidental 47
• Incidental 152
• Incidental 8
• Incidental 94
• Karen Plankton
• HAZMAT Unit Template:Debut

Synopsis

The episode starts as a normal day at the Krusty Krab. Mr. Krabs happily is doing paperwork, but he becomes confused as to why his profits are down. He leaves his office and notices Squidward giving a customer his food, minus a drink. After Squidward says that no one has ordered a drink in days, Mr. Krabs questions this. Mr. Krabs then sees that everyone is drinking from bizarre-looking bottles filled with a green liquid akin to the color of seaweed, including SpongeBob. SpongeBob tells Mr. Krabs about the drink called the "Kelp Shake," which angers Mr. Krabs so much that he bans all outside drinks from the restaurant. This, however, backfires when the customers leave without paying for their food or drinks. Mr. Krabs goes to investigate, and it turns out that Squidward is following the trend too.

File:Best Frenemies 097.png

Enemies begrudgingly working together.

While Mr. Krabs is uncertain if Plankton is behind these new drinks, he goes to the Chum Bucket to investigate anyway. After accusing him of creating the phenomenon, Plankton tells Mr. Krabs he has no idea what is going on because he has been relaxing the entire day. Worried the new Kelp Shakes may run the two's respective establishments out of business, they decide to work together and try to steal a Kelp Shake to discover what it is made of. They go to a Kelpshake restaurant and use multiple attempts, mostly involving Plankton's minuscule size to find out, but they all fail. The next day, Plankton angrily tells Mr. Krabs that he is giving up their escapade since he is the only one on the front lines. He and Mr. Krabs, who is also enraged, lament and argue over their failures, with Plankton calling Mr. Krabs a fat gorilla before SpongeBob suggests the two simply buy one, something that worries Mr. Krabs. With Plankton's motivation, Mr. Krabs reluctantly buys a Kelp Shake and goes to the Chum Bucket to analyze what it is made of.

File:Best Frenemies 198.png

Things are back to normal... well, almost.

Karen starts analyzing, but Plankton gets impatient and interrupts the progress of the analyzer. They find out that the drink has two ingredients, the primary one being kelp juice. The two drink the shake and find it to be delicious, but ignore Karen, who tries warning them about the other ingredient in the drink. After going out to buy some more shakes, SpongeBob is seen running towards Mr. Krabs and Plankton, wailing and crying, as he is covered in green kelp fuzz all over his body, even growing over his clothes or outright disintegrating them. He also tells them that they are shutting down the Kelpshake Restaurants and runs away.

Then they go out and see that all Kelpshake restaurants are shut down because their shakes contained a toxic and dangerous ingredient. Then Mr. Krabs and Plankton grow the kelp fuzz all over their body. Among the fuss, Plankton decides to go back to stealing the Krabby Patty secret formula. Instead of attempting to stop him, Mr. Krabs gives him a Krabby Patty and they chase each other around just for the fun of it while the episode ends.

Running gags

• Plankton getting hurt every time he and Mr. Krabs infiltrate the Kelpshake restaurant.

Production

Release

• This episode is available on the Season 4 Volume 2, First 100 Episodes, The Ultimate SpongeBob Box Set, SpongeBob SquarePants Vol. 6, Complete Fourth Season, From the Beginning, Part 2, The SpongeBob SquarePants Collection, The SpongeBob SquarePants 8 Season DVD Collection, 2-Season TV Pack, The Third & Fourth Seasons, and The Best 200 Episodes Ever DVDs.

Trivia

General

• This episode was released on the Season 4 Volume 2 DVD box set before it aired on American television.
• The title is a portmanteau of "Best Friends" and "Enemies," making it "Frenemies."
• The title card background is similar to that of "The Paper," but it has an orange background instead of a yellow one.

File:Menu.jpg

Kelp Shakes on the Galley Grub menu in "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V."

• Kelp Shakes are listed on the Galley Grub menu inside of the Krusty Krab in "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V" and ironically contradicts the logic of the Krusty Krab banning Kelp Shakes in this episode.
  • However, it is very likely that the Kelp Shake seen on the Krusty Krab menu is a different variant than the one seen in this episode.
• The Kelp Shakes buildings divide like bacteria and seem contagious. This could also be considered monopolizing.
• When Plankton tells Mr. Krabs about the guard worm, he calls it a watchdog. This is because usually worms in SpongeBob SquarePants are the equivalent to dogs in real life.
• The "Well, good luck with that" quote SpongeBob says is reused from The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
• This is the first time Mr. Krabs and Plankton team up against a foe. The second is "The Other Patty" and the third is "The Krusty Bucket."
• This is the second appearance of a guard worm. The first is "The Lost Mattress."
• This is the second appearance of the Chum Bucket analyzer. The first is "Plankton!"
• This episode premiered on the same day as the 2007 Kids' Choice Awards.
  • This is the fourth episode, along with the sister episode "Born to Be Wild," to premiere on the same day as the Kids' Choice Awards. The first was "Help Wanted"/"Reef Blower"/"Tea at the Treedome" in 1999, the second was "Krabby Land"/"The Camping Episode" in 2004, and the third was "Krusty Towers"/"Mrs. Puff, You're Fired" in 2006.
• This was the last episode to premiere before the show officially became rated TV-Y7 on April 1, 2007.
• In the German dub, this episode is called "Beste Fr-einde," which translates to "Best F(r)iends."
• In the Greek dub, this episode is called "Φικοσέικ," which translates to "Kelp-Shake."
• In DVD version of this episode, Plankton's mouth becomes purple, but in the Nicktoons airing, his mouth becomes red.

Cultural references

File:Best Frenemies 185.png

Plankton's abnormal hair growth.

File:Ugh 187.png

Albert Einstein's hairstyle as shown with a picture of his head in "Ugh."

• Plankton's abnormal hair growth makes him have a head-hairstyle similar to Albert Einstein. Since Plankton has an interest in science, this hairstyle that he has developed is rather suitable.
  • Albert Einstein was also referenced in a previous episode called "Ugh." Specifically when a picture of Albert Einstein's head appears inside of a speech bubble from Squog's mouth.

Errors

File:Inc36 Yellow Eyes.png

Incidental 36 with yellow eyes.

• While everyone is drinking Kelp Shakes at the Krusty Krab, Incidental 36's eyes are yellow instead of white.
• When Incidental 37B says, "Wow, what a steal" and orders food, he just walks away without taking any of the food he ordered.

File:SpongeBob's straw overlapping his mouth error in Best Frenemies.png

The Kelp Shake straw is overlapping SpongeBob's mouth.

• When Mr. Krabs says, "What? Why not?" and SpongeBob is shown drinking the Kelp Shake for the first time, the straw is overlapping his mouth.
• There are some errors during the part when Mr. Krabs and Plankton walk into a Kelp Shake store and look for the kitchen door.
  • When Mr. Krabs whistles and first notices the kitchen door, it has a purple sign that reads "Employees Only!" in pink letters and has the correct spelling.
  • When Mr. Krabs is sneezing in several different directions and sends Plankton flying towards the kitchen door, the same purple sign with pink letters from before now reads "Employes Only!" with the word "employees" being misspelled by missing the third "e."
  • When Plankton lands on the window of the kitchen door and gets stuck, the "Employees Only!" sign is now yellow with red letters and the word "employees" is spelled correctly again.

• File:Purple employees only sign in Best Frenemies.png
• File:Purple employes (misspelled) only sign in Best Frenemies.png
• File:Yellow employees only sign in Best Frenemies.png

• The security system which warns Mr. Krabs and Plankton says, "You have three seconds until spontaneous combustion!" and then pulls out a laser, but the term "spontaneous combustion" actually means something that suddenly bursts into flames.
• When the security system says, "You have three seconds until spontaneous combustion!" as a warning to Mr. Krabs and Plankton, more than four seconds pass overtime before Plankton is electrocuted by a laser.
• There are three Kelp Shakes next to the Krusty Krab, two on the left and one on the right, but when SpongeBob talks to Mr. Krabs and Plankton inside the restaurant, two of the Kelp Shakes on the left outside are gone.
• After Mr. Krabs says, "Hey, get back here you little booger!," Plankton suddenly disappears out of the screen, rather than gradually disappear, like in other episodes.