That Sinking Feeling
"That Sinking Feeling" is a SpongeBob SquarePants episode from season 7. In this episode, to avoid irritating Squidward, SpongeBob and Patrick dig a tunnel under their houses, and accidentally sink Squidward's in the process.
Characters
- Patrick Star
- SpongeBob SquarePants
- Squidward Tentacles
- Jellyfish (cameo in painting)
- Shelley
- Sheldon J. Plankton (cameo)
- Gary the Snail (cameo)
- Incidentals
Synopsis
It is a beautiful day on Conch Street, where SpongeBob and Patrick are giggling and playing by running back and forth between their houses, passing through Squidward's yard in the process, referred to as a "walkway." Squidward opens up his blinds to look out of his window, and this annoys him because they are running in his yard the whole time. He finally loses his temper and walks outside to get mad with them. He stops SpongeBob and Patrick with two suction cups and screams at them about playing in his yard. SpongeBob explains to Squidward about doing so, they're technically playing in their own yards and that they're using his yard as a walkway. Squidward now wants to make them choose which one of their yards to play in, and leave his yard out of the situation. Patrick thinks he's very good at choosing, but can't decide which yard to play in that day, and finally lets Squidward choose. He separates SpongeBob and Patrick from each other by putting them in their own yards and draws a box around his to prevent either of them from going through his yard, and then goes inside his own house.
The two panic and think that they will never see each other again. SpongeBob tries to walk across the road, but the traffic is terrible, and just at that moment wants Patrick to do something. Patrick tries to squeeze himself into the mailbox in order to get to SpongeBob's house, but as soon as he manages to get into the mailbox, the stem breaks, the mailbox tips over and immediately explodes once it hits the ground. SpongeBob wants to let Patrick sit tight, ties himself to the mailbox, and slingshots himself over to Patrick, but it does not seem to work. SpongeBob now has an idea and wants Patrick to see so they think to dig a tunnel underneath their houses.
They eventually meet up and start playing. Squidward can hear them playing, so he goes outside, but they are not in his yard. He looks in SpongeBob's and Patrick's houses, but they are not there either although Squidward sees Gary out on the rooftop enjoying the sun. Squidward cannot find them anywhere and eventually, this sends Squidward into a rage as he believes SpongeBob and Patrick have finally become ghosts, so he shouts, "Where are they?!" and starts jumping up and down. This causes the roots underground to wiggle, and SpongeBob and Patrick think they are dancing, so they start doing so.
This sinks Squidward's house and he finally realizes that they're underground the whole time, so he enters his house through the roof hatch. Squidward comes out of his house and makes SpongeBob and Patrick dig it back out while he relaxes, but Patrick accidentally breaks Squidward's window and SpongeBob accidentally let all the dirt flood Squidward and himself out of the house. Now extremely angry, Squidward threatens SpongeBob and Patrick if they don't obey him and dig out his house by the count of three, Squidward is going to turn them into chum (kill them), which shocks them. SpongeBob and Patrick dig more, but it is not enough to dig the house out completely, so when Squidward reaches three, they start running away in panic from Squidward, who furiously chases them as they keep digging more tunnels to escape. As they are doing this, SpongeBob and Patrick sink all the buildings in Bikini Bottom, including their own houses, downtown, and even the Krusty Krab. Plankton then realizes that the Chum Bucket is the only restaurant in town, but it sinks too.
After a whole lot of digging, SpongeBob and Patrick come to a rock but are unable to go any further, and a furious Squidward corners toward them. After he yells at them and they tearfully apologize before anticipating the inevitable, all of Bikini Bottom sinks underground. Sometime later, SpongeBob, Squidward, and other Bikini Bottomites are seen digging out Bikini Bottom. SpongeBob says "Another beautiful day under Bikini Bottom," and Squidward puts on a mining helmet and saying, "I hate neighbors" as the episode comes to a conclusion.
Production
The episode was confirmed and added to the US Copyright Office on April 12, 2010,[4] along with its sister episode "Karate Star."
Art
Prop design
-
Designs for the Conch Street gang's hard hats
Storyboards
Music
| ( ‣ ) Production music |
| ( • ) Original music |
| ( ◦ ) SpongeBob music |
• Cream Pie - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [Title card]
• Seaweed 2 - Steve Belfer [SpongeBob and Patrick running back and forth between their houses]
• Who Said That- Jolly Good Fellow 2 - Nicolas Carr, Barry Anthony [Squidward's angry]
• FlexTone Sting - Nicolas Carr [SpongeBob and Patrick look at each other]
• Light Conversation 1 Full Mix - Nicolas Carr, Barry Anthony ["We're not playing in your yard, Squidward, we're playing in our yards!"/"SpongeBob's! I'm terrible at choosing! Squidward! You choose!"]
‣ Unsettled Menace - Phil Green ["SpongeBob!"]
‣ Armed Attack - Jean Clero ["Patrick, what are we gonna do?"]
‣ Unsettled Menace - Phil Green ["I'll mail myself to your house!"]
‣ Sea Battle [#44] - John Fox ["Sit tight, Patrick! I'm coming to get you!"]
• Steel Licks 40 - Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob and Patrick go back into their houses]
• New Vibe Hits - Nicolas Carr ["Hmm... have we ever dug a tunnel between our two houses?"]
• Slide Whistle Stooges No Whistle - Nicolas Carr, Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob and Patrick digging a tunnel between their houses]
• Solo Steel 3 - Jeremy Wakefield [Squidward sleeping]
• Noodly Shinanigans - Nicolas Carr, Barry Anthony ["Peek-a-boo, I see you!"]
• Solo Steel 2 - Jeremy Wakefield [Squidward goes back to sleep]
• Noodly Shinanigans - Nicolas Carr, Barry Anthony [Squidward is woken up by SpongeBob and Patrick]
• Tension Bits - Nicolas Carr, Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [Squidward gets angry]
• Descent Into Madness - Nicolas Carr [Squidward's yard empty/Patrick's house empty/SpongeBob's house empty]
• The Pollywog Strut - Nicolas Carr, Barry Anthony [Gary on the roof]
• Down in Davie Jones Locker - Nicolas Carr ["Where are they?!"]
• Slide Whistle Stooges No Whistle - Nicolas Carr, Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob and Patrick stomping]
• Steel Licks 46 - Jeremy Wakefield [Squidward's house underground]
• Steel Licks 22 - Jeremy Wakefield ["It ate Squidward."]
• Gator - Steve Belfer ["I knew you two reprobates were behind this."]
• Slide Whistle Stooges No Whistle - Nicolas Carr, Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [Squidward chases SpongeBob and Patrick]
• Lap Steel - Nicolas Carr ["Oh, boy!"]
• Skipping to School - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [Squidward goes back into his house]
• Tension Bits - Nicolas Carr, Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield ["One!"]
• Tension Times Two - Nicolas Carr ["It's counting! Anything but counting!"]
• Tension Bits - Nicolas Carr, Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield ["Two!"]
• Tension Times Two - Nicolas Carr ["He's already at number two!"]
• Tension Bits - Nicolas Carr, Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield ["Three!"]
• Tension Times Two - Nicolas Carr [SpongeBob and Patrick scream]
• Spongemonger - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob and Patrick digging while being chased by Squidward]
• Steel Licks 54 - Jeremy Wakefield [Chum Bucket sinks underground]
‣ Scherzo Phrenia - Gregor F. Narholz ["Must dig!"/Squidward closes in on SpongeBob and Patrick]
• Steel Licks 18 - Jeremy Wakefield ["We're sorry!"/entire town sinks underground]
• Earls Revenge - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [Ending]
Release
Distribution
- This episode is available on the Complete Seventh Season, SpongeBob SquarePants Vol. 11, The SpongeBob SquarePants Collection, Bikini Bottom Buddies, The SpongeBob SquarePants 8 Season DVD Collection, Next 100 Episodes, The Best 200 Episodes Ever, The Seventh & Eighth Seasons, and The Best 300 Episodes Ever DVDs.
- It is also a bonus feature on the Fanboy & Chum Chum Comic Chaos DVD in Australia and Europe.
Reception
- This episode was nominated for an Emmy at the 2011 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short-format Animated Program.[5]
Trivia
General
- Squidward hates Gary, but he appears to be friendly to him in this episode since he greets him when he sees him. Gary also greets him back.
- The scene when Squidward looks out the window seeing SpongeBob and Patrick running back and forth on his lawn became a popular meme.
- The tunnel that SpongeBob and Patrick dig spells out "Eat at Krusty Krab." This quote would later be used in "The Good Krabby Name."
- There is an episode of Phineas and Ferb that shares the same title.
- Incidentally, Dan Povenmire, who worked on the SpongeBob episode "Graveyard Shift," is also one of the creators of the aforementioned show.
- "Reprobate" means "an unprincipled person."
- In real life, Squidward would not to be able to hear SpongeBob and Patrick clearly underground, as they would be muffled or not discernible at all.
- When the Krusty Krab sinks, Plankton is happy, but then the Chum Bucket also sinks. This is opposite of the scene in "Slide Whistle Stooges," where Squidward destroys the Chum Bucket with a truck, Mr. Krabs is happy, then Squidward also destroys the Krusty Krab.
- When Squidward forces SpongeBob and Patrick to dig out his house on the count of three, he threatens to "grind them into chum" if they don't. Chum is fish guts, and this is an underwater show, so he likely meant that he is going to murder them.
- This is the second time Squidward threatens to kill SpongeBob. The first is "The Lost Mattress."
- This is also one of few times SpongeBob and Patrick are scared by Squidward.
- In airing order, this is the first episode to use the track "Light Conversation 1."
Dub facts
- On Nickelodeon Pakistan, when Squidward yells at SpongeBob and Patrick and is going to threaten the two, the scene where the entirety of Bikini Bottom goes under is cut, and goes immediately to the scene where SpongeBob greets Squidward ready for a day of mining.
- In the Bahasa Indonesia version, the final scene featuring Bikini Bottomites digging out Bikini Bottom was sometimes cut for unknown reasons.[citation needed]
Cultural references
- The title of this episode is a reference to the phrase "sinking feeling."
- The underground chase is a reference to the 1982 arcade game Dig Dug. Just as SpongeBob and Patrick run under a rock and crush Squidward, Dig Dug (a.k.a Taizo Hori) himself can use rocks to crush Pookas and Fygars in the game and rack up points.
- The sinking town may be a reference to the 1969 movie Paint Your Wagon, which also features a town sinking due to tunnels being dug beneath it. This film was made by Nickelodeon's sister company Paramount, both the TV channel and movie studio are owned by Paramount Skydance.
Errors
- When Squidward checks Patrick's house, the door to Squidward's house is open. When it point to SpongeBob's house, however, the door to Squidward's house mysteriously closes on its own.
- Squidward draws the lines around his house as a barrier, but when he comes out looking for SpongeBob and Patrick, they are gone.
- When SpongeBob notices the roots moving to Squidward's stomping, they are close to the top of his head, but when he and Patrick are looking up at the roots moving, they are feet above their heads.
- Also, if the roots were inches from SpongeBob's head, Patrick's head would have been close to or touching the top of the tunnel.
- When Squidward's house sinks into the ground, the "eyes" aren't visible, and the roof hatch is the only above-ground visible object; but later, when Bikini Bottom is underground, there is a large, skylight-like hole around the roof hatch area, the roof hatch is visible underground, and the "eyes" are visible.
- When SpongeBob and Patrick are standing in front of the giant rock while Squidward is yelling at them, SpongeBob blinks his eyes but his corneas are still visible.
- When SpongeBob and Patrick throw their pickaxes into the air, SpongeBob's right sleeve turns transparent for a couple of frames.
- The roof hatch on top of Squidward doesn't appear at the end of the episode.
- Squidward's house sinks slowly, but the rest of the buildings sink nearly instantly.
- When Patrick first meets SpongeBob underground, his outline is black rather than pink.
- At one point, SpongeBob is missing his right arm.
- At one point, SpongeBob's teeth are yellow instead of white.
Names in other languages
| Language | Name | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| French | Chacun dans sa cour | Everyone in Their Own Backyard |
| German | Untergraben | Undermining |
| Hungarian | Mindennél van lejjebb | It Can Always Go Deeper (literal translation of a Hungarian saying, equivalent to "It can always get worse" |
| Italian | Toccare il fondo | Touching the Bottom |
| Portuguese (Brazil) | No Fundo do Poço | At the Bottom of the Well |
| Russian | Полное погружение Polnoye pogruzheniye |
Total Immersion |
| Spanish (Latin America) | Esa sensación de hundimiento | That Sinking Feeling |
| Spanish (Spain) | Bajo tierra | Underground |
References
de:Untergraben (Episode) hr:Onaj osjećaj tonjenja es:Esa Sensación de Hundimiento pl:Bezdenne zatapianie pt-br:No Fundo do Poço ru:Полное погружение