A Pal for Gary

## *SpongeBob SquarePants*"A Pal for Gary"

Richard Pursel

Creative:

Vincent Waller

SpongeBob thinks Gary is lonely while he is at work, so he buys another pet named Puffy Fluffy for Gary to play with. Every time SpongeBob leaves, Puffy Fluffy scares Gary, and SpongeBob thinks Gary is mean to it.

## Reception

It was understandably despised by critics and fans alike, and was considered the worst episode in the show. I hated the episode as well, giving it a low score of 1.5/10, considering it my least favorite episode of *SpongeBob*, next to "Ink Lemonade".

#### Why It Sucks

1. SpongeBob is at his ***ABSOLUTE*** worst in this episode, like:
	* When he was going to get a pet for Gary, he felt worried that Gary is all alone by himself, even though Gary has always been doing okay and has never minded being alone all by himself.
	* He finds a pet store full of nudibranchs owned by a merchant, where he ignores her warning about Puffy Fluffy and *steals* him without paying money.
	* He gets Gary to bed as he thinks the latter was ignoring Puffy Fluffy, even though Puffy Fluffy is ***truly*** behaving psychopathically towards Gary.
	* He thinks Gary destroyed his library and almost his whole house, which does not make sense as it would be impossible for a normal pet to destroy a house in *one* night.
	* In the worst scene of the episode, he berates Gary and commands him to release Puffy Fluffy, when Gary was just being held captive inside Puffy Fluffy's mouth and this was right in front of SpongeBob. Yes, SpongeBob has always been portrayed as a naïve character from time to time, but he was never too stupid to realize that one of his pets is eating the other one! How dare you think that!
	* When Puffy Fluffy escapes, SpongeBob wants him to return, even though the former had captured him.
	* Even at the end, he still blames Gary, despite the fact that the latter had *saved his life* from being eaten alive by Puffy Fluffy. (gasp) How ***ungrateful***!
	* He takes Gary to work, even though the Krusty Krab already made a rule banning pets earlier in the episode, which is straight-up hypocritical.
2. It is unnecessarily mean spirited towards Gary, where it is just an episode where Gary gets tortured.
3. Puffy Fluffy only tortures Gary, and does nothing else.
4. Puffy Fluffy's scary design with long, jagged teeth and multiple mouth-like tongues is very unsettling, even for a kids' series and even anything, ***ANYTHING***, related to *SpongeBob SquarePants*, for crying out loud!
5. The episode has that irritating cliche where the innocent character gets punished despite no wrongdoings and the character doing all the bad stuff gets away with being a Karma Houdini.
6. **Suspicious continuity mistake:** When Gary has to sleep with Puffy Fluffy, he sleeps in a normal pet bed in another room, even though he has always slept on newspapers in SpongeBob's bedroom in most episodes.
7. **Awful ending:** After Puffy Fluffy escaped when Gary saved SpongeBob and attacked the former, SpongeBob still accuses Gary. Instead of apologizing or being grateful to Gary for saving his life, and after all of that he takes Gary everywhere he goes, especially the Krusty Krab. It doesn’t help that Mr. Krabs hired Gary, even though he created a policy banning pets from the Krusty Krab.
8. Wasted potential, the idea of an episode were the protagonist buys an animal that looks harmless when in truth its a dangerous creature was a neat idea of a SpongeBob episode, and could have made some creative and funny gags that involves the creature, but Gary had to be put though it, which ruins the episode greatly.
9. SpongeBob doesn’t get one thing to learn in this episode (normally he does learn valuable lessons and stuff) but here he does almost get caught by Puffy Fluffy, but it’s not enough.

#### Redeeming Qualities

1. Puffy Fluffy finally got his comeuppance at the end.
2. The opening is good, as it feels like something that came from a regular *SpongeBob* episode.
3. Gary using the leash for a lasso to open the cabinet door and grab some snail food before starting to watch a cowboy show is a neat set-up for the climax.
4. Gary's attack on Puffy Fluffy and rescue attempt on SpongeBob was awesome.
5. SpongeBob saying "Oh these enchiladas are hot, hot, hot!" is the only truly good joke in this episode.
6. This episode would have **definitely** been so much better if SpongeBob had his original personality.