SpongeBob SquarePants: Pest of the West

Nickelodeon premiered its much-touted special, SpongeBob SquarePants: Pest of the West, on Friday, April 11, 2008. As with other SpongeBob SquarePants specials, "Pest of the West" ran for a half hour.

Pest of the West begins with SpongeBob's best friend, Patrick, pretending to be one of his famous ancestors. Mr. Krabs adds to the discussion about famous ancestors. SpongeBob doesn't recall having any famous ancestors, and ends up leaving the Krusty Krab feeling dejected. As he walks, he runs into Sandy and tells her what's bothering him. After Sandy mentions her famous ancestor, she takes SpongeBob to the library, where they look at a book of Bikini Bottom history. In the book, they find SpongeBob's ancestor, Sponge Buck SquarePants, had saved the town back when it was called Dead Eye Gulch.

Then, the audience is taken "back in time" to see Sponge Buck's arrival at Dead Eye Gulch, and how he ends up being given the sheriff's badge. As this happens, he meets ancestors of Mr. Krabs, Patrick, Squidward, and Mrs. Puff. We also meet the villain, Dead Eye Plankton (as can be guessed by the name, he is an ancestor of Plankton's). Dead Eye has been terrorizing the citizens of Dead Eye Gulch and trying to take over the whole town. Sponge Buck is challenged by Dead Eye to a showdown at high noon, and it's up to Sponge Buck and the other characters' ancestors to figure out how to defeat Dead Eye and regain their town.

For a SpongeBob SquarePants special, it delivered what the audience expected... sight gags, humorous dialogue, and laughs. I have to say, I appreciated how "going back in time" was accomplished in this special. It played a lot better for me than the medieval times special (where SpongeBob and Patrick went back in time to the medieval period, but it was never known whether they actually went back in time or it was all a dream). Here, I liked the fact that we went from SpongeBob and Sandy reading the book, to seeing what happened in the past, with Sponge Buck and the ancestors. Going into this, I was almost afraid that the writers would find a way, either for real or through a dream, to actually send SpongeBob back to the Wild West.