Spongebob VHS: "Happy Place" (Redux)

I’d like to state that I’m a man who lives in a small town. It’s barely two miles long with only a dirt road going straight through it. But I like this town because of its nice scenery, the neighborhood was peaceful and everything was just a simple walk away. There are a lot of stores in my town, and I mean a lot, there was a tailor, a carpenter shop, grocery stores and a bar. And there was another store I forgot to list, it was in the middle of my town. It was an old VHS store that was owned by a nice old lady. It was always in top condition due to the lady’s dedication to it, which I found it be odd to say the least. But to each there own, I guess. 
One day the store was having a sale —everything was fifty percent off. I got into the store out of pure intrigue, I then spotted a particular VHS that stood out. It was a Spongebob tape. It was in a large case like most VHS‘ were. The cover had an image of the top half of Spongebob’s face, with only his eyes showing, his eyes were closed, with a thought bubble of smiling fishes and plants along with what looked like Spongebob’s hands reaching out to grasp them. On the side it said, in the shows font “Happy Place”. 
The other side had the back of Spongebob’s head: There was what looked like a small smiley face etched into his head, though it looked faded, there was also no description about the episode, that text being replaced with a single sentence: “Spongebob finds joy in the pure fields of his mind.” I found the tape straight up weird from just looking at it. I’ve never seen this episode before, and the text on the back made it off-putting. I decided to buy it just to see what was on the thing, since I might’ve found a rare unreleased episode.
 
I asked where it came from, only for her to say that she didn’t know, only that it came in a large bag that she found labeled “Spesial Edishion Tapes”, and found it weird that it was spelled like that. She didn’t think anything of them due to them probably being just some regular tapes that were being donated in order to be resold. She claimed that most of them had been bought, but the one I gotten had a small reputation for being returned the most out of the tapes. People would borrow it and would return it hours later without giving any reason. With even some people not even looking at the lady, having their heads down the whole time. 
I asked if I could buy the thing and she nodded, saying that it would be nice for the tape to not be constantly returned to the place. One dollar and five cents was the price and I happily paid for it in cash. 
Who knew, right? 
When I got home I hooked up my VCR, putting it underneath the old TV. I hoping to see what the VHS’ contents had in store for me. I kept forgetting to buy a newer TV set, but for this occasion, I considered myself lucky to have kept the thing.
I put the VHS in the VCR, sitting down on my small living room couch. It made the standard startup noise and the show started, though it skipped the theme song and went straight for the title card.
It had “Happy Place” in the shows font. The letters were in pink, and smaller compared to the other title cards from the show, the background was brown with the centre of the flowers being green. ‘Maybe it was just an episode where Spongebob got stressed at work and found a happy place’, I thought. I selected it, since there wasn't any other option. The episode immediately started with Spongebob and Patrick outside his house.
There was only a single note of the theme song and it cut to him with Patrick. They were doing their usual antics as they did in the show, running around and laughing. Then SpongeBob saw something, it was shiny and white. He looked over at it with curiosity, but before he could get over to walk to it, Patrick called out his name. Spongebob immediately ran over to him, but stopped half way.
He then quickly glanced back over to the object, looking over his shoulder, then over to his friend, then back at the shiny object. “My friend needs me, but that thing over there looks pretty neat… hmmm.” His thought to himself for a minute or two, his thumb and index finger resting between his bottom lip and the middle of his chin while he was thinking and his brows furrowed. It cut to a view of his legs, walking towards the object without Spongebob knowing it. He immediately snapped out of his thoughts, and looked down.
“Barnacles— my curiosity got the best of me yet again!” He said as he snapped his fingers in defeat. “Well I better get a closer look as this thingy-mah-hoosit.” He said in his usual up-beat voice. I was pretty intrigued myself, seeing as how well done this episode was so far. He bent over and got a closer look at the object. It looked like a kitchen knife of some kind. The handle was dark green with a strange pattern on it, like a mix of spirals and swirls. The blade was pearl white, with an iridescent-looking finish to it. It appeared to have writing on the heel of it. Spongebob picked the knife out and began to read the writing on it.
The video began to distort a bit as he read it, “‘The happiest place to be is in your head.’” It then went back to normal in an instant. It weirded me out a bit, but that didn’t stop me from watching. “Well that sounds kinda funny… Patrick come over here, I found something!” The starfish walked over to him, looking at SpongeBob annoyed, “Spongebob, I called out your name over and over, what do you wa- Oooo… what’s that?” Patrick’s mood changed as soon as he saw what Spongebob was holding. “I-It’s a knife Patrick, I’m surprised you don’t know…“ Spongebob explained. Patrick took a closer look at it. His face immediately went pale as soon as he saw the message on the knife’s heel. 
His colors looked more white like the knife. Patrick’s mouth was in a scared frown and his eyes were wide, his pupils looking like dots. He looked like he just saw a ghost possess someone.
”S-s-s-Spongebob, I-I-I have a bad f-f-feeling about that thing. I d-d-don't know what, but p-please… don-“
Spongebob then looked up, seeing the sun going down. “Oh, it’s afternoon already! Well Pat— sorry to cut this short but I gotta head back home, see ya buddy!” Spongebob waved, not listening to Patrick’s warning as he jogged back into his pineapple house, stuffing the knife in his back pocket.
Patrick still look shell-shocked from what he saw. 
“Dear Neptune, please be merciful on us, he found your gift…” He prayed. This was getting more weird: Patrick was supposed to be the dimwit out of Spongebob’s friends, why was he so worried about SpongeBob finding a knife? His back slouched forward as he shakily walked back to his rock house.
In his room, Spongebob was sitting up on the edge of his bed and pulled the knife out, looking like he was admiring its details. “Why is Patrick so paranoid of this knife? It’s… kinda nice to look at…” He teased to himself. As he finished saying that, he began to look like he was spacing out as he gazed at the quote on the heel of the knife. His pupils began to expand until it almost filled his eyes. He looked up and saw the room fill up with smiling faces, everything in the room was smiling and laughing violently. He began to smile and look up even more with his expanded pupils, looking like his eyes were about to roll to the back of his head.
“The happiest place is in my mind, and I wanna share it with all…” I then saw Spongebob eyes shift down to look at the knife, his hands and pupils jerking in different directions. At that point his eyes were now large and ovoid shaped. The room had now expanding with even more faces covering the room along with the laughter sounding more hard and crazed. The sponge looked up, his eye colour had shifted to a dark green colour. The screen hard cut to black. 
I was kinda surprised at what I saw; it was so surreal, but I wasn’t going to let a weird episode from a kids show freak me out too much. 
It then came back to SpongeBob’s room, now now back to its normal state, now in complete shambles.
It was covered in holes, like someone stabbed it over and over in a frenzy: the floor had scratch marks all over it, the wallpaper was ripped apart and also had the same marks on it and the furniture was equally destroyed. It panned over to Spongebob sleeping happily in his bed. It was partly shredded but not as much as the rest of the room. SpongeBob was giggling quietly to himself. From what I could gather, Spongebob must’ve gotten into a stabbing frenzy of some kind and destroyed his own room. I was completely baffled at how weird and kind of morbid this was, but I kept watching on.
The next day came, but there was no time card to show it. It just faded in with Spongebob in his tarnished room, smiling cheerfully to himself. His eyes were still large and ovoid and his pupils were still that deep shade of green but were less expanded this time. There were visible bags under his eyes, but they looked like they were just scribbled under his eyes; he looked disheveled and had apparently slept in his clothes, looking dirty and uneven in some places. 
But he continued to smile as usual, but it felt wrong this time. It was drawn more angular at his cheeks and his two from the teeth weren’t visible. It cut to him skipping down the stairs, almost missing the last two of them. The stairs looked disproportionate and somewhat broken now, having the same slash marks like the ones covering his room. He went to the kitchen to get some breakfast, noticing that the knife was on the table.
Gary was in the corner of the kitchen, cowering in fear as soon as Spongebob entered the room.
“Heya Gary, my favourite pet in the entire Bikini Bottom! You look hungry, let me feed you and fill your stomach with lots of goodie-goodies!” 
He sounded so overly happy and cheery that it was off-putting, almost sounding forced. Gary became more terrified of him as he skipped gleefully to the fridge and grabbed the handle with a powerful looking grip. The movement of his hand was so quick that it was almost like light speed in a sense. He then threw the fridge door open, his eyes skimming over its contents. They looked dilated and devoid of life. His eyes darted to snail food and then forcefully gripped the bag, his fingers looking like they were going to burst open the bag.
He ripped the bag open and slammed the fridge door shut, the sound being so loud that it could’ve broken its hinges on impact. Spongebob then poured the frightened snail his food, his expression still stuck to that uncanny smile. Gary started to move away from Spongebob, sweat dripping from the quivering snail. The view was stuck to Gary’s level as Spongebob went over to get his breakfast, which appeared to be cereal, it panned to him making it, the camera stuck on Gary’s point of view now. He began to eat the cereal with the knife, smiling and humming to himself.
I didn’t know how to feel at this moment, it was all so weird. Did Spongebob have a mental breakdown the night before? Why is Gary so terrified of him? Why is Spongebob so fixated on the knife? I immediately suspected the knife had something to do with it. I was getting a tad bit invested at this strange video, but I digress.
It cut to Spongebob walking down the street, possibly to go to work, the knife in his back pocket. I sank in my seat, thinking that Spongebob might do something unthinkable with it. As he was walking his saw some civilian fishes on the side walk, he began to slow down and stare at them with his dark green eyes. He saw and imagined himself attacking them all with the knife and laughing dementedly, he smiled at that thought with that damned smile. He looked as if he was lost in thought, while the other fishes looked at him weirdly. “Sir, are you okay?” One of the fish questioned. “Oh… I’m okay, I’m just… thinking…” he muttered, giggling like a schoolgirl as he skipped all the way the the Krusty Krab. It cut to him with Krabs and Spongebob in his office.
“Ahoy Spongebob, it has come t' me attention that yea’ve actin' mighty strange lately, care t' explain?“ The red crustaceans asked in a concerned tone. “Eheheh… well y’see Mr. Krabs, I’ve been having… weird thoughts as lately, haha… they’re very mean ones too… ever since I found this.” He pulls out the knife from his back pocket, his pupils expanding from just looking at it. Mr. Krabs immediately becomes intimated, yet frightened by the knife. It was like he too knew what the knife is. “Boy-o, y-ye needs t' seek mental help, that knife isn't goin' t' brin' ye good. Trust me, ye don t' want t’ know what happened t' th' last persons mind when they had it. It won't do ye any good keepin' it a round ye fer long-“ 
Spongebob again began to space out as Mr. Krabs continued to speak. The room was covered with those smiling faces and sounds of laughter, who began to say and sing awful things about Mr. Krabs, how he was so greedy, that he’ll never share anything, that Spongebob was the innocent one and that he’s going to take his happy place away. Mr. Krabs voice was barely audible at this point, being blocked out by laughter and the chanting. 
“ Why are ye givin' me that look? Wha'as wrong wit' yer eyes? Yer' startin' t' scare me, boyo…”
Mr. Krabs shivered as his voice snapped the sponge out of his trance, but Spongebob didn’t look Krabs in the eyes, too busy looking down at the knife with his expanded pupils and smiling. SpongeBob’s head shot up at Mr. Krabs as he began to launch himself to Mr. Krabs' desk, laughing hysterically as he did so.
I was sort of surprised, yet intrigued as I continued to watch the tape. I never thought that Spongebob, the shows main character, a fun loving sponge, would lose his mind because of a knife he found. Then I had a thought, Was the knife cursed? I know it may sound stupid, but at least it makes sense. Spongebob finds a knife that belonged to the person who also fell for it, and becomes taken by it as like the previous owner. Was it a gift to Neptune like Patrick said? So many questions filled my head over what was going on, it honestly was pretty cool to see something like this. It was like the creators wanted to put some lore into the show. Maybe it was too creepy and it got cut. I continued to watch on.
It faded in with a title card saying ’In the Asylum’. And cut to Spongebob in a white padded room, wearing a straitjacket, giggling and chanting “This is my happy place, so white and quiet…“ Then the camera zooms in slowly on Spongebob in the corner, looking more disheveled and lifeless. His eyebags were more visible, and his eyes looked soulless, like a doll. 
The knife faded into view in a distorted fashion near his crossed legs. The world around him and the knife began to morph into those smiling faces. They all began to mutate and fuse into each other as the changed colors and began to warp and swirl into different smiling visages and the audio was almost indescribable as well.
It was like an awful mix of bass, gut-wrenching laughter, screaming and white noise. It continued get worse and worse as it zoomed out, Spongebob and the knife still in view. He was on his side, his arms tugging from inside the straitjacket. It then cut to black with the text “Thx for watching my thing.” In brightly colored marker, it was like someone was very angry when they wrote it. 
The VHS then ended with a faint giggle of a girl. It took a while for me to get myself together after watching that, it was so surreal and strange. Seeing Spongebob slowing descending into madness by a (what I presume to be) cursed knife, was very unique for a kids cartoon. I ejected the tape, put it back in its case and laid it flat on the coffee table. I collected my thoughts as I stared down at the tape. I still don’t know who made it or why they put it in the shop with other tapes, but I have a theory that the creator was just stressed with their own thoughts and wanted to make a cartoon about it. 
Or it was some sort of sick joke by some who wanted to shock people with it by donating it to stores so they get curious and buy it; they then would return it to the store, then it would get shoved back into the bin and the cycle would repeat. 
It was the only theory that made sense anyway.
Category:Lost Episodes
Category:TV
Category:SpongeBob
Category:VHS
Category:Nickelodeon
Category:Nicktoons