Spongebob You're Fired (Season 1)

I bet some of you know about the SpongeBob SquarePants episode “SpongeBob, You’re Fired!” from Season 9. The plot is exactly what it says on the tin: SpongeBob gets fired and has to go job hunting. The episode was bashed due to the stupid reasoning of SpongeBob’s firing and it’s portrayal of “Funemployment”.

However, what if I told you it was originally from Season 1? But before you ask how I know this, let’s go through the story.

Me and my friends would often go on shopping sites as a hobby and find weird stuff. We started out on eBay, then expanded our site list to Amazon and Etsy. As for some weird stuff we found? Some of it was downright funny, with stuff like tissue boxes with pictures of bacon on them, and some of it was creepier, like a book called “How To Kill A Kid”. However, one day, we found out about a site called Craigslist.

To this day, I wish we never even TOUCHED Craigslist.

Craigslist is a site where you actually have to go get it from the person you ordered it from. It also assigns a site to you depending on where you live, so I was on the Baton Rouge site. We had a field day with Craigslist. We bought weird stuff from people that may be normal or weird. However, one day, while I was searching alone, I discovered this listing:

SpongeBob SquarePants $0.00 (Baton Rouge)

The picture was just a VHS tape with SpongeBob SquarePants scribbled on it in blue marker. I thought it could’ve been a premiere of an episode, so I bought it. I then called the man selling it. He said his name was Dominic, and he discovered the tape in a VHS player at a garage sale in Orlando. We made a deal; I would come over to his house to get the tape at 3:00 PM. I waited until then, and then drove over there. It wasn’t a long drive, but eventually, I ended up at Dominic’s house, and he let me in. Dominic told me he was a collector of many valuable items, along with his wife. He led me down to the basement, where I saw a treasure trove of many things. Rare video games, valuable old comics, and even items from Christian Weston Chandler himself. He led me to a shelf with a bunch of VHS tapes on it, and he picked out one of them. Sure enough, it said “SpongeBob SquarePants”. I took it, thanked him, and was about to leave. However, he warned me:

“Theo, please don’t play this tape. I don’t want you destroying it either. It’s really valuable, but I just want it GONE.”

I heeded that warning and left. Once I got home, I left it on my bedroom drawer. I promised to never play or destroy it, but each day, it seemed as if the urge to play it grew 10 times larger. I had to fight that urge, however. One day, that urge took full control of me. I just had to play that tape. I went into my attic, got out a dusty old VHS player, hooked it up to my flatscreen TV, and to my surprise, it worked. I then put the tape in. It started up to glitchy static, then to 4 seconds of a black screen. Suddenly, the intro started. The VHS was of bad quality; it had clearly suffered generation loss. However, it wasn’t too bad, since I could still make out what was going on. But, I noticed one thing; during the intro, I heard an adult voice whispering “I stole the episode” over and over again. Eventually, it went to the title card: “SpongeBob, You’re Fired!”. I was confused, since SpongeBob, You’re Fired came out in 2013. This was a Season 1 Episode, judging by the old intro and logos. Anyways, back on topic. The start of the episode had SpongeBob cooking some Krabby Patties and handing them out to the customers. Mr. Krabs walks into the kitchen and breaks the news to SpongeBob: The Krusty Krab is in a bad financial state, and as a result, it has to fire employees to save money. He then ends up telling SpongeBob he’s fired.

SpongeBob, like in the new version of the episode, is sad, but not as sad as the new version. He walks out of the Krusty Krab and goes home. Patrick decides to visit him, and he comforts him by telling him he could always get a new job. However, after that, it cut to glitchy static. I thought it was just because of generation loss, but then, I saw it.

The animation was now reminiscent of a Newgrounds Flash from the early 2000’s. SpongeBob had a mad look on his face, and he was walking down a road to the Krusty Krab. He pushed open the door and confronted Mr. Krabs, who was in his office counting money. Mr. Krabs was surprised to see SpongeBob had returned, and asked why he came back, to which SpongeBob replied “Nothing, I just need to take care of something,”. SpongeBob opened the door to the kitchen, in which Squidward was making Krabby Patties. He slammed Squidward’s face on the grill, to the horror of everyone. He pressed it down further, making it melt along with the patties. He pulled Squidward’s corpse up, carried it, and threw it in the dumpster behind the Krusty Krab. He then went back to Mr. Krabs and threatened him with the same fate if he didn’t rehire him. Mr. Krabs agreed, and SpongeBob was hired again. SpongeBob then told Mr. Krabs he wanted him to watch him make his first batch of Krabby Patties. They then walked into the kitchen, followed by more glitchy static. And what I saw after that static made me scream.

A man that was mutilated to look exactly like Mr. Krabs. His eyes were horribly stretched and poking out of holes in his stomach. Speaking of which, his head had been decapitated, and his torso painted red. His legs were now pointy and stubby, and he had two hands for each arm to make “claws”. A “smile” was also cut into his torso. This was no Mr. Krabs; this must’ve been a man who was killed and mutilated to look just like Mr. Krabs. From there, a man proceeded to create patties out of “Mr. Krabs”, slicing and dicing him until he was even less recognizable. He then shaped his remains into patties and put them in burgers.

It cut back to the poor 2D animation, where SpongeBob was giving everyone Krabby Patties made out of Mr. Krabs himself. Everyone happily ate them, and they seemed to enjoy them. SpongeBob then laughed, and then it cut to Mr. Krabs and SpongeBob laughing in the normal Season 1 animation.

After that, the tape ended. I turned off the player, changed the source to my cable box, ejected the tape, and threw it in the attic, where it dwells to this day. Needless to say, I won’t look at SpongeBob the same ever again.