Spongebob - Pain

The town I live in has been in decline for many years, even beginning before I was born. From my youngest years a tinge of despair has characterized my life and my understanding of life. The midwestern grayness here serves as the backdrop for locals falling victim to drug addiction, increasing amounts of poverty, relatives involved in ugly domestic disputes, and even a few cases of missing persons like the girl I knew in kindergarten who disappeared and briefly caused a nationwide panic. Most cities here in the Rust Belt were the bright spots of America in the golden days of the 1940s and 1950s, but all those golden dreams evaporated when the country began to de-industrialize and left all our factories and cities rotting, abandoned and stuck in limbo. Such is my life of working, going home and watching some middling content on social media before falling asleep and repeating the cycle. It’s limbo. I haven’t had a girlfriend for years and with my lack of college education I don’t think I’ll be working my way up a corporate ladder any time soon. Considering how much the divorce affected my family when I was growing up, I’ve actually ended up in relatively decent shape. Still I dream for a better life and a better future. But above all, I yearn for my youth. 
Despite all the troubles I encountered growing up, I have a romantic and somewhat pathetic longing for my youth. I constantly find myself replaying old video games I used to play with my family. I'm always revisiting old cartoons and watching hours-long reviews of them online. I even find myself listening to the music from these games and shows more than normal music. In these moments I situate myself back to a time where all I cared for was achieving the goal on the TV screen with my brother and my friends while blocking out all the parental arguing that was going on behind me. I was spending my afternoons in the worlds of cartoon characters that I almost came to see as friends and I didn’t feel the isolation that has imprisoned me since I came of age. In this veil of nostalgia I wrap myself in the colors of these different worlds I visited in my youth to avoid seeing the dreariness of my own world. I’m a bit embarrassed by these tendencies; I’ve begun collecting old video game consoles, beanie babies, toys, memorabilia, and so on. When I talk with my friends, often we’ll talk about some obscure television show that only went on for about a year or maybe I’ll go on about our favorite video games from the 2000s, lamenting how much better they were than today’s games. I recognize how trivial these interests are, they certainly aren’t important to my life in adulthood. But I can’t help myself from indulging in these nostalgic yearnings all the time. 
Six months ago, I went to a flea market on the weekend. It was the perfect atmosphere as autumn was in full swing and I could spend a lazy Sunday just checking out cool stuff and crashing out on my couch watching football games. I started frequenting these flea markets around the time I started collecting media memorabilia and video game consoles, to the point where I’m acquainted with most of the sellers. On that day I went to a particularly large flea market that draws in sellers from many different cities and even neighboring states. I encountered a seller I hadn’t seen before, and he told me he was from a nearby city. He was selling lots of different VHS tapes, cassettes, DVDs, Laserdiscs and even some old video game cartridges. The Laserdiscs caught my eye in particular as I’ve been wanting to collect a few. Digging through the boxes of DVDs and tapes, I saw that some were burned and not official. The seller told me those weren’t worth much and I could pick them up for free with whatever I buy. The burned DVDs were still recognizable to me -- movies like Man on Fire, I Am Legend, games like Halo 3, etc. But one of them stuck out to me. It was a disc that just said “SPONGEBOB - PAIN.” 
The disc was a different color than all the others and the font was also different, so I knew it probably didn’t come from the same source. Immediately what came to mind when I saw this CD was all of those Internet horror stories about haunted pieces of media being discovered by people or weird lost episodes that somehow got made but then disappeared. Those always entertained me and I felt like this disc was probably one of those stories brought to life. I certainly didn’t know of any Spongebob episode called “Pain,” and although it’s possible that it was from the later seasons I doubted they would pick such an obviously edgy title for the episode. I was curious to see if this was one of those “lost episode” discs made for horror purposes. I asked the seller where he got this particular disc, and he said “That one? I don’t know. A seller got it from a seller who got it from someone, I’m not sure. Like I said those burned ones are worth peanuts, take as many as you want.”
I left that day buying some old VHS tapes, a Laserdisc version of Blade Runner and that Spongebob disc. I told my friends about the disc and sent it to them in the group chat where they all promptly had the same reaction as me -- that it was one of those horror story videos that someone produced into a real disc to try and trick some unsuspecting buyers. Well I knew better, and I was excited to see what ridiculous stuff was on there. I invited some friends to watch it with me if they weren’t busy watching the games or going to the bar that day. I already had a CD player hooked up in the little section I have in my apartment for old games and tapes, and I couldn’t help but watch the CD before any of my friends confirmed they would come over. Spongebob was probably the defining show of my childhood, the source of about 20% of quotes in my daily vocabulary, so I couldn’t resist. I was expecting to have a laugh watching this CD and noticing all the typical clichés they put in these horror short films, but for the ten minutes that this episode lasted I was nothing but bewildered. I couldn’t predict what I was about to watch. 
The episode did not have a title card. It started very abruptly with the typical Spongebob music but a few seconds into the song already playing while showing exterior shots of Spongebob’s house. It then cut to a bubble transition showing Spongebob sitting on his couch watching TV. The animation was quite limited throughout the episode. There wasn’t much movement and I believe this was done to keep the art more convincing. The animator actually did a good job at imitating the art style of the earlier episodes of Spongebob, even having proper color correction and grain. Many parts were noticeably traced from the real episodes. Overall it looked well done and could easily fool a younger person. 
Then Spongebob began to talk. His voice was a bizarre imitation of Spongebob by someone who clearly didn’t have the vocal range to talk like him. It would’ve been funny if the voice didn’t have this contorted tone to it. It’s very hard to describe, but the voice actor tried pulling off a high pitch and sort of indulged in the fact that he couldn’t. The voice acting came off as irreverent and odd, being made worse by the slight echo you could hear from wherever this guy was recording. He was talking to Gary about banal things like the weather and the news about the Bikini Bottom he was watching on the TV. The last thing he said was “How about that last story Gary? Hahahaha!” The laugh went on for longer than it needed to and it was a pithy, eerie laugh. I couldn’t stand this guy’s voice. By this point there wasn’t any music playing at all.
Then Patrick knocked outside Spongebob’s door. The episode showed Spongebob getting up and walking to the door painstakingly. The footsteps were clearly being created by the voice actor himself as he just stomped his feet on the floor to imitate steps. That same echo could be heard. It was so bizarre. The door being opened was again a homemade sound effect he recorded with his real door. When Patrick began talking, it was the voice actor’s imitation of Patrick which was also forceful, detached and had a slight echo. He might have had a good computer to make this episode but certainly not the best microphone. Patrick, like Spongebob, talked about banalities. It was a strange conversation about Spongebob’s work schedule and asking what kind of activities they wanted to do that day like blowing bubbles or going Jellyfishing. The voice actor sounded like he was having fun just talking to himself and inventing a fake conversation between these characters. When they both walked over to Squidward’s house, you could hear the guy sniffing and preparing to do Squidward’s voice. He didn’t even make an effort to edit most of these takes, and again, they took an unnaturally long time just to walk to the house. He did his Squidward voice and acted as Squidward typically does, annoyed by Spongebob and Patrick. 
I was waiting for the episode to careen into some grisly territory as these haunted episodes usually do, but considering how minimalistic it was so far, I had no way of predicting when something strange was going to occur. After a basic conversation, Squidward went on a tirade against Spongebob and Patrick for bothering him in the morning and his remarks went on for a long time. It was a full blown rant seemingly improvised by the voice actor, and his performance was especially overblown. He was oddly passionate about the things he was saying. He talked about how depressed he was and how he couldn’t stand Spongebob and Patrick trying to drag him outside his house or annoying him the way that obnoxious family members do. He spoke of having these morbid feelings since he was a child, at this point audibly choking back tears. At this moment I felt like laughing at the absurdity of this whole episode, but the strange vibe of the whole CD and the delivery of these lines prevented me. What I really felt deep down was this sense of pity and disturbance. Whoever made this video, whoever was recording these lines, he was clearly speaking through the characters. These weren’t their words, these were his. Squidward’s rant about his anger and depression was more of a confession than anything. 
Squidward slammed the door and the episode was still and silent for a while. Of course, it was a real door slam sound from the microphone. It took a while for something to happen. It cut to Spongebob and Patrick staring at the door and then their faces getting angry after a few seconds. Spongebob said “Hey Patrick, I’m sick of this guy!” with Patrick responding “Yeah, he’s always like this! And no one likes him. He’s so weird. A loser. Who knows what he does behind that door. Crazy things. I’m sick of this.” Spongebob replied “Let’s get him! Yes, hahaha! Like the thing on the news!” 
Things were slowly getting under my skin for the whole episode but by now I was completely disoriented. The most minor elements of this fake episode are what made it disturbing to me instead of entertaining. Usually these videos would be filled with gore, glitches, out-of-place animation quirks, glowing red eyes, whatever. But this video was the opposite. It was boring. It had an eerie tone throughout of pure emptiness and uncanniness. It sort of flowed like a normal fake episode of Spongebob, it looked just like one, but not really. It wasn’t snappy, it was slow and petty and focused on the strangest little details in both the animation and voice acting. Above all, it was unpredictable. Why did it take so long for things to happen? Why are the characters talking in such a weird way?
There was a bubble transition. It was late at night and Squidward was outside bicycling for whatever reason. He had an unusually happy face. Then in front of a bush, some kind of wooden plank started sticking out and Squidward crashed into it almost comically. It was placed by Spongebob and Patrick. They then started dragging Squidward into the bush and taped his mouth shut. Now the episode was starting to resemble more of what I anticipated, but again, I couldn’t enjoy any of it in an ironic way. The sequence was weird and kept the whole liminal, detached vibe the whole episode had so far. The voice acting was full of strange panting and grunting sounds. When they taped Squidward’s mouth and hands and legs, I think I recognized the animation he used. There was an episode where Squidward was actually taped and tied up I think, and the animator seems to have traced that drawing. Then Squidward was thrown into the trunk of the boat car. It was pretty drawn out and the only audio was the voice actor’s grunts and breathing. Things were starting to shape into more what I expected from this CD. 
There was no bubble transition. It just cut to Spongebob, Patrick and Squidward in Patrick’s house. Squidward was tied up and trying to escape. As he was squirming, Spongebob said “You like that, huh?” with by far the most unsettling line delivery of the episode so far, because it was the most sincere. Then it started. Patrick pulled out a knife and handed it to Spongebob, where Spongebob began stabbing Squidward repeatedly. The blood was rather crudely animated and spilled out of Squidward incrementally with every stabbing. Gore definitely wasn’t the creator’s main focus for this scene, instead it was the voice acting. The scene went on for a full minute of relentless stabbing from Spongebob. From the audio I knew that the actor had to have been acting out the scene in person. You could hear every motion his body made, every time his lungs contracted as he shouted and moaned, and you could hear him going farther away and then closer to the microphone as he performed this scene. He was completely into it. Spongebob was yelling and sadistically enjoying the moment while Squidward was screaming with the duct tape over his mouth. The creator of the video voiced both of them in excruciating detail. 
The scene went on for so long that it became outright boring, but again, that feeling of uncanniness stopped me from finding the absurdity of this scene entertaining. It was silly, it went on for too much, but once again I knew this person behind the episode enjoyed it. The voice acting was too intimate and too long for it to be some kind of horror gag. It was honest and profoundly creepy. He had fun pretending to kill someone for as long as he did, and after it was over, there was an aura of catharsis. There was heavy breathing and slight laughing from Spongebob. As he kept muttering random things to himself standing over Squidward’s corpse, he said “Just like Dora.” That was the only time I laughed, I guess the implication being that Spongebob killed another Nickelodeon character, Dora the Explorer. A part of me was disappointed with this sequence, being far more reserved and minimalist than I thought a bloody death scene in one of these videos would be. The other part of me kept dwelling on the voice actor's weird moaning. 
Now frightened at the whole scene, Patrick said to Spongebob afterwards “Spongebob, they’re gonna get us for this!” and Spongebob just responded with incessant, awkward laughter. After a few seconds of silence, he said “Don’t worry about it. We’re gonna be safe.” Then the episode cut to a typical Spongebob title card that said “15 YEARS LATER.” The creator did the French narrator's voice poorly of course, and I admit it was sort of funny. The rest of the episode was not. It was just a series of ambient scenes showing the daily lives of the characters. Spongebob was working at the Krusty Krab, Patrick was sleeping. Mr. Krabs was counting money at his desk. Then it cut to Squidward’s house exterior for about 10 seconds. 
There was a bubble transition and it cut to Spongebob entering his house exhausted after a long day at work. It was late at night and he started watching TV with Gary. It was another strange, empty scene with nothing much happening aside from Spongebob looking depressed and hearing the sounds of the different channels he was clicking through. One of the channels had a newscaster saying “they're still on the search right now and asking anyone who knew…” before Spongebob switched to a different channel, this time someone talking about sports. After another 20 seconds, he finally started mumbling something to Gary. “It was just once, Gary… they can’t judge me. They don’t even know.” I thought that this seemingly referred to him killing Squidward. He continued, “People do things that are a lot worse these days. How do they think it makes me feel?” Like previous moments in the episode, there were other mumblings that I couldn’t quite make out. The episode was silent for the rest of the duration. It was just Spongebob watching TV. Then at the end, a typical song that would play at the end of Spongebob episodes started playing. It was upbeat and bouncy, totally at odds with the utter depression on the screen. 
And that was it. The episode just cut to black, and it stayed that way for about 30 seconds. Given how unpredictable the episode was and how unnerved I was, I couldn’t bear to keep watching and let my curiosity drive me. I didn’t know if something else would happen or if the black screen would stop, and I didn’t care. I was so anxious that I got up and unplugged the entire CD player without even removing the disc. Terrible thoughts started to fill my head, as if disturbing images would suddenly pop up as the episode dragged on with a black screen. I wasn’t going to find out. My friends ended up coming over that night and I made up some excuse that I lost the CD somewhere in my living room after misplacing it. They were a bit suspicious of me but after some shots of alcohol and some pizza, no one cared about the episode. I drank especially heavily that night. I knew I couldn’t sleep on my own after watching what I did, so I drank more to knock myself out, knowing I had work in the morning. I didn’t try processing what I watched until the next day. I kept thinking about it during my commute and while working. Being around other people made it more comforting to go over. 
The CD wasn’t what I expected at all. I thought it was going to be a stereotypical lost episode horror short that someone made as a hoax. But the episode’s content was anything but formulaic. It was sinister, vague and morbid. I never had such a depressing experience in my life as watching it. It radiated negativity and exhaustion. I was constantly bothered by the strange voice acting and intimacy of the delivery. If someone just threw in a bunch of gore pictures with scary faces of Spongebob then I would’ve laughed at the video and how hard it tried to scare people. But this didn’t seem like it was trying to scare me, I don’t really know what it was trying to do. I didn’t know why the characters said the things they said, I wasn’t sure why it was so stiff and eerie, and I had no idea why someone would take the time to make it. Why a children’s show, why a Spongebob episode? If you’re gonna make a video of Spongebob killing Squidward, there are much more obviously gruesome ways to do it that would spook people. Instead the episode had an emphasis on the empty space around the characters, on the dialogue and on the exaltation the voice actor felt while performing the murder. This made the episode more terrifying to me than any alternative I could have imagined. 
It wasn’t until I tried going to bed that night that I started to think about the dialogue more. It made more sense than I initially considered. All three 3 characters expressed a feeling of regret at some point. There was an emphasis on news reports in the media. There was an overwhelming focus on emptiness, loneliness and mundanity in the episode. The most passionate moments from the voice actor came when Squidward was on his self-pitying rant about depression and Spongebob killing him afterwards. Even while watching I had a feeling the creator felt strongly about those moments given his intensity. And speaking of self-pity, that’s how the episode ended. It was Spongebob mumbling to Gary about what a hard time he’s had in life after committing his deed. I concluded that the episode had a meaning to it. It wasn’t just a hoax made to scare people, it had some other purpose. It was cathartic to produce and distribute for whoever created it. But I was too bothered by the CD to investigate further and see if there was anything after the black screen at the end of the episode -- unnerved by the episode itself, and how much I related to it. Yes. In some weird way, the weariness of the characters and the remorse they felt really got to me. It was not unlike the feelings I had in my own life. And the stronger I felt about this episode, the more I wanted to distance myself from it and thus the ways it reminded me of myself.
I kept the CD in the back of my closet afterwards. After about a month I tried never to think of it again. As the new year went on, I slowed down on a lot of my nostalgia binging. I didn’t waste much time collecting old toys and watching old shows anymore. I continued to play video games a lot but not as much as I did in the past. I even picked up reading as a new hobby, particularly history books which I never thought I would get invested in. I made genuine improvements in my life once I developed this mindset of looking ahead into the future and picturing myself in a better position rather than trying to wander through a past that wasn’t really as good as I thought it was. Perhaps there was a reason my memories were crystallized in mass-produced media rather than my actual youthful experiences.
One day while having dinner at a restaurant, the topic arose with my friends about our youth. We discussed old games, memorable days from school, classmates we had, and so on. My closest friend who I knew since childhood started talking about how run-down our town is. “Yeah, I don’t blame most people for leaving. I don’t know why we’re still here. Fucked up shit here.” My other friend said “With these drugs now, I see zombies walking outside.” And then another friend said “You guys remember that girl who disappeared when we were in kindergarten? You were in her class, right Ethan? That girl Dora.”
Category:SpongeBob
Category:Lost Episodes