Boating School

Template:Episode "Boating School" is a SpongeBob SquarePants episode from season one. It is the first episode to feature Mrs. Puff and her school.

Characters Present:

• SpongeBob SquarePants
• Mrs. Puff (debut)
• Patrick Star
• Ambulance Drivers (debut)
• Gary
• Fred
• Boating School student

Locations

• Conch Street
• Mrs. Puff's Boating School (debut)

Plot

It is the day of Spongebob's driving exam at Mrs. Puff's Boating School, and he is very excited. If he passes it, he will get his license. Once there, he throws his unicycle away, assuming he will pass. Having taken the oral exam thirty-seven times previously, SpongeBob is able to answer the questions before they are even asked. However, upon reaching the driving portion of the exam, he panics and quickly crashes into a lighthouse, causing Mrs. Puff's body to inflate. Later that night, he complains about his failure to Gary, who asks SpongeBob to go for a walk, which he declines. Patrick is then heard talking to him from a walkie-talkie under his bed covers. Spongebob heads into his closet and finds Patrick with a "surprise", wearing his clothes and calling himself "Patrick SquarePants". SpongeBob is too depressed to laugh, and explains his problem to Patrick and mentions that he needs someone to help him think straight during the exam. Patrick quickly devises a plan. He puts a walkie-talkie inside SpongeBob's head so that he can talk SpongeBob through the test, hiding the antenna with a cowboy hat.

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. This is followed by a video 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 his sudden improvement and jokingly suggests that SpongeBob's success is due to an antenna under his hat through which "some guy miles away from here is giving (him) all the answers." SpongeBob (and Patrick) finds this hilarious, until Mrs. Puff concludes, "But that would be cheating!" Upon realizing that he has been cheating, SpongeBob goes into hysterics, driving wildly all over the course and sobbing while Mrs. Puff tries desperately to stop him. Patrick, upon hearing this, runs out of Spongebob's house and jumps under his rock, sobbing. Spongebob crashes the boat and fails the test, and the bloated Mrs. Puff is taken to the hospital. Upon leaving boating school, he finds Gary riding his unicycle. Spongebob rides off on it, saying "Let's go surprise someone at the hospital!"

Trivia/Goofs

• When SpongeBob comes out of the boating school near the end of the episode, he says Gary found his bike. However, it is a unicycle.
• First Episode to feature "My Leg!"
• When SpongeBob wears a hat to hide an antennae, his hat looks like the Arby's hat logo.