SpongeBob checks the clock and realizes that it is time for Gary's bath, but the snail does not want one. SpongeBob, wary of the battle he is in for, tries various methods he learned from his family to get Gary into the tub.
First, he throws a ball to the bathroom and tells Gary to fetch, but it is a Boomerang Pet Ball, so it comes back. Next, he straps a bomb to his own chest and tells Gary that it will explode in three seconds if he does not take a bath, but Gary does not move. SpongeBob then tries to hypnotize Gary with subliminal messages, but the imagery, even a freaky girl he accidentally brings up, does not help. He then calls a French restaurant, but cannot understand the receiver's accent and appears to talk very fast. SpongeBob then plays leapfrog with Gary to toss him towards the bathtub, but misses and breaks Gary's shell. He then tries to bribe Gary with a dollar bill, but Mr. Krabs appears and snatches it. A dance routine and a fake treasure hunt leading to the bathtub also fail, as do his attempts to physically force Gary into the tub.
Furious, SpongeBob decides that if he cannot bring Gary to the water, he will simply have to bring the water to Gary. SpongeBob absorbs all the water in the tub and tries to spray it at Gary, who swiftly dodges every shot. Outside, he corners the latter in a tree and climbs up, unloading his ammo at what he presumes to be Gary, but realizes he only sprayed a gramophone that looks like Gary playing a record of meowing that Gary put on the tree to trick him.
Gary steals SpongeBob's ladder, leaving him stuck on top of the tree, saying that he is not the boss of him, and he does not have to take orders from him as well as saying it is a free country. Gary sneaks towards a mud puddle and prepares to touch it, which SpongeBob notices. He gives him a three-second count to get away from the puddle. However, he refuses and accidentally causes SpongeBob to fall out of the tree into the mud himself. SpongeBob is then forced to take the bath under Gary's supervision instead.
Production
The episode (along with the recut version of "Shanghaied") was delivered on May 30, 2001.
‣Nostalgic Hawaii - George de Fretes, Jan Rap [Title card] •Steel Licks 22 - Jeremy Wakefield ["You're gonna have to get in that tub, Gary."] •Vibe & Harp Hits - Nicolas Carr ["Now Gary, we can do this the hard way or the easy way."] •Steel Licks 22 - Jeremy Wakefield ["So that's how you wanna play it, huh?"] ‣Hula Festival - George Elliott [Boomerang pet ball] ‣Unease - Dick Stephen Walter [Subliminal messages] ‣Hawaiian Link (A) - Richard Myhill ["Sorry you had to see that."] ‣Cafe' De Paris - Trevor Jones [SpongeBob calls a French restaurant] ‣Chief Taravana - Kapono Beamer [Leapfrog] ‣Dingle's Regatta - Brian Peters [Pirate treasure map/"40."] ‣Kerry Polka - Brian Peters [Bathtub painted to look like treasure chest] ‣Dancing The Hula - Kapono Beamer ["Get in the tub!"] ‣Six Powerful Cues D - Wilfred William Burns [SpongeBob hanging from the ceiling] ‣Dramatic Cue (D) - Ronald Hanmer [Gary sees engorged SpongeBob.] •Spongemonger - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob spitting water at Gary] •Solo Steel 4 - Jeremy Wakefield ["Oh no! I bathed Gary too hard and removed his skin!"] •Solo Steel 2 - Jeremy Wakefield [Gary meowing mockingly] ‣Lonely Heart's Club A - David Bell, Otto Sieben [SpongeBob chewing out Gary] ‣Nostalgic Hawaii - George de Fretes, Jan Rap [Ending/SpongeBob taking a bath under Gary's supervision]
This episode holds the record for having the longest amount of time between its airing on Nickelodeon and its sister episode's airing, being separated by 2 years, 4 months, and 17 days.
However, the episode premiered in the United States on AFN first on March 4, 2002 (1 year, 4 months, and 23 days), then on Nicktoons TV on June 17, 2002 (1 year, 1 month, and 10 days), over a year before airing on Nickelodeon.
It was also released on the Sea Stories DVD and VHS on November 5, 2002, half a year before airing on Nickelodeon.
This episode was released internationally between late 2001 and early 2002, prior to the release dates in the US. Its world premiere was in Canada on December 6, 2001, half a year before its American Nicktoons premiere, and a year and a half before the American Nickelodeon airing.
Furthermore, it was also the only episode to premiere on the Nicktoons Network until "Buff for Puff" in 2023.
The title card text also closely resembles the title card of "Bubble Buddy" as well as the text during the bubble title in the theme song.
This is the third episode to run for less than eleven minutes. The first was "Help Wanted," and the second was "Reef Blower."
The reason that this episode is a short is due to the length of its paired episode, "Shanghaied."
This episode format was brought back occasionally beginning in season 10, with a 15-minute episode being paired with a 7-minute short. It has been used once every season since, beginning with "Feral Friends" and "Don't Wake Patrick."
This is the only episode to only use one voice actor, Tom Kenny, who voices both SpongeBob and Gary.
Mr. Krabs also appears, but he has no lines.
Gary disliking taking baths is based on how domestic cats don't like getting wet; Snails are the underwater facsimile of a cat in the show.
Tom Kenny thinks this episode is more like a Looney Tunes short "SpongeBob-style."
When SpongeBob calls the French restaurant, he tells them he has a snail that won't take a bath — a popular French dish, "escargot," is made out of them. SpongeBob's plan immediately falls apart as he does not understand the man speaking on the other end (almost like he's speaking another language), quickly hanging up.
However, escargot is land snail, not sea snail.
SpongeBob only does this to scare Gary into taking a bath.
SpongeBob complaining about the French restaurant's language not only refers to the man on the other end can only speak French, but is also an inside joke at the gibberish that comes out of the phone during a one-sided call.
The first episode in which SpongeBob is the main antagonist.
Specifically speaking, SpongeBob is an antagonistic to Gary because of him forcing Gary to take a bath after all his ideas fail and angrily scolding him for not taking a bath.
This is the second episode where a record player is used to replace a character. The first was in "Pressure."
List of ideas that SpongeBob tries to get Gary to take a bath:
Throwing a ball to the bathtub. However, it is a "boomerang pet ball," so it comes right back, and so does the box it came in.
Strapping a bomb to his chest and telling Gary that it will explode if he does not take a bath; the bomb explodes because Gary does not take a bath and SpongeBob does not deactivate the bomb.
Sending subliminal messages to Gary. A disturbing picture of a girl comes up, prompting him to apologize.
Calling a French restaurant because France has a popular dish called Escargot, made from snail. He cannot understand a thing the person on the other end is saying.
Playing leapfrog with Gary. He tries to launch Gary into the tub, but misses and makes Gary's shell break.
SpongeBob tries to play leapfrog again, but Gary refuses and hits SpongeBob with a cane.
He bribes Gary with a dollar, telling him that the next person to take a bath in his house will receive it; Mr. Krabs arrives out of nowhere in a bathtub and takes it.
Different dances.
Fakes a treasure hunt and paints the bathtub to look like a treasure chest. Gary sees right through the deception.
This episode was paired with different episodes in several marathons:
In the French dub, SpongeBob calls a Chinese restaurant.[10]
In the German dub of this episode, the episode is called "Die Wanne ist Voll," which translates to "The Tub is Full." This is a reference to a German song from the 1970s.[11]
In the Dutch dub of this episode, when SpongeBob is filled with water, Lex Passchier spoke his lines while talking into an actual bucket of water.[12]
When SpongeBob throws Gary off of his back, one of the frames has the outline around SpongeBob's eye incomplete.
In the scene where Gary runs out of the pet door, it is visible from the outside, but when SpongeBob opens the door, the pet door is not there.
The second time SpongeBob asks Gary if he wants to play leapfrog, both of his ring fingers are incorrectly outlined, leaving the fingers to look detached from the hand.
Some prints of this episode, such as the UK broadcast, have noticeably out-of-sync audio (alongside the latter Patchy segment in 'Shanghaied'.)
This has occurred with other season 2 episodes, such as 'The Secret Box'.
During SpongeBob's dance, the first transition between dance moves is not correctly animated and it just snaps SpongeBob into a different position.
This is not intentional, however, as all of the other dance move transitions have animation showing SpongeBob moving into the correct position.
In the still shot of SpongeBob's "treasure map," the wallpaper is the one of his living room even though SpongeBob is holding it up in the kitchen.
However, the door in the kitchen is in the right place. This means it is not a shot of the living room.
SpongeBob had painted the tub to make it look like a treasure chest, but in the next shot, it goes back to normal.
File:Noserror.pngThe bottom of SpongeBob's nose is outlined in dark yellow instead of black.
When SpongeBob hands Gary soap and a rubber duck, after he says "I don't know what a snail would want with a brooch!," the next shot shows that they have disappeared.
File:Noshoebottom.webpSpongeBob's shoes with uncolored bottoms.When SpongeBob loses his grip of Gary on the ceiling, the bottoms of his shoes are briefly transparent.
When SpongeBob absorbs the bathwater, his shirt collar disappears for about five frames before reappearing again.
When SpongeBob is back to normal after spraying all of his absorbed water at "Gary," the bottom part of his nose outline is colored the same as his body outline instead of the usual black color.
When SpongeBob yells, "Do not go near that mud puddle!", his mouth is actually saying the next line, "Gary the Snail, do you hear me?"
After Gary takes away the ladder that SpongeBob uses to climb the tree, a faraway view of the tree is shown, and the ladder is seen falling to the ground. However, in the next faraway view of the tree where SpongeBob falls out of the tree and into the mud puddle, the ladder is no longer there.
