SpongeBob 1998 Pilot
Hi, my name is Eli. I may seem like your ordinary teenager, but no. I loved SpongeBob SquarePants, and everything related to it. I'm talking movies, books, video games, you name it. But ever since a quite strange and disturbing incident happened about a year ago (which I still remember to this day), I had lost a bit of respect for the series.
You see, my dad worked at Nickelodeon Studios on shows like Rugrats, Hey Arnold, Rocko's Modern Life, and last but not least, SpongeBob. Since he knew I loved the series, he always got me SpongeBob VHS tapes for my birthdays ever since I was just 7 years old. And of course, I watched them and loved them because I was a enormously geeky fan. Anyways, my fourteenth birthday was on May 11th, and it was great. And like always, my dad brought me SpongeBob tapes, but this time, there was a twist that turned the entire situation around. Here's what it was like:
"Hey dad, I bet you got me another one of those SpongeBob tapes again like you have for 7 years now."
"Haha, of course, sport! This one's a Christmas special!"
"Wait, isn't it only May?"
"I looked through your collection, bud. It appears that this is the only one that I haven't found in there."
"Oh, really? Cool!"
"Ah, ah, what do you say?"
"Thank you. *rolls eyes with a smile*"
"No problem!"
It was at that moment I noticed another VHS in his pocket. It was blank, for some reason. I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity, so I decided to ask him about it.
"Hey, what's that one?"
"Oh, er... that's a work in progress. Whatever you do, just don't watch it, alright? In fact, I was headed over to work right now to edit it, but there's an issue with the storyboarding for an upcoming episode, so I'll leave it in it's case. Bye!"
"Um, bye."
First of all, I was wondering why he had looked through my collection, because I wouldn't expect him to do something like that. And second of all, why wouldn't he want me to watch the tape? It was as if he would put a SpongeBob popsicle on a table and tell me not to eat it. I was confused, so I took the tape out of the box for a quick peek. It turned out that the case was as blank as the tape, nothing but black. I took another look at the tape again, before taking it upstairs and putting it in my VHS player. It had a piece of tape stripped across, with the words "SBSP 1998" written on it." I was not prepared for what I was about to see, as this would change my perspective on SpongeBob forever.
The Episode
The tape started with the classic Nickelodeon logo with the black background and white text, except that the Nick logo looked a bit more orange than usual, it almost looked red. It then cut to a title card, strangely with no music, and instead a bit of static. But the title card read "001" and the date underneath the title read "©1998 Nickelodeon", so assuming it was some sort of pilot episode or something, I just shrugged it off and let the episode play. It cut to the staff credits, which for some reason was just one frame using the usual sand background which read "Created by Stephen Hillenburg" in yellow and blue font. Finally, it cut to the episode.
It started out with an upshot of SpongeBob's pineapple house, except it was yellow, making it look like it was peeled or something. SpongeBob then walked out of his house and walked over to Patrick's rock, whistling a happy tune, as he probably would in any ordinary episode. Except when he got there, Patrick's rock was an actual rock. Not brown, but jagged and grey, like average ones. SpongeBob knocked on it, and a deep yelling voice was heard yelling "GO AWAY!!!". So then I thought that in this pilot that Patrick was the original Squidward. SpongeBob then said "Aww, c'mon! It'll be fun!". This time, the rock opened and Patrick angrily said "SpongeBob, if you dare bother me again, I will make sure to-" he was then suddenly interrupted by what looked like a hard slap in the face from SpongeBob. SpongeBob then spoke these six words which I will never forget. "I warned you, you stupid star.".
I was very disturbed by what SpongeBob said. I would never expect him to do that. I would never expect him to do anything close to that whether it was in the show or not. I soon began to realize that something was just not right with this so called "Pilot". SpongeBob was then seen walking to what I assumed was an early version of the Krusty Krab. After walking in the door, there was a time card reading "7 misery-filled hours later". I was again, confused, as thinking that there probably wouldn't be something like that in the series. Well, unless if that were to be Squidward instead. After, SpongeBob is seen walking out of the Krusty Krab and into a strange, dark forest. SpongeBob was getting deeper and deeper, where it got darker and more distorted, which started to majorly freak me out. The screen then cut to black for about 5 minutes, which gave me enough time to think about what may happen next. Let's just say my estimate was nothing like the final product.
The screen got bright enough for me to see it, where SpongeBob was sitting on the ground, looking like he was about to have an emotional breakdown. He then let out a horrid, ear-piercing scream preceded by a montage of what seemed to look like him constantly beating himself up, fists and all. I was getting just sick by what was being shown on my television, almost making me want to throw up. After all that, SpongeBob curled up into a ball and whispered the sentence that I won't forget about whenever watching the series again...
"Why, just why? Why have I been doomed to an endless cycle of taking out my anger on my true friends, acting normal, letting myself do this to me, and slumping back into my dead home? Oh, I know why. It's because of you. You force me to preform and entertain for your joy. You don't know what I'm going through on the inside, do you, kiddies? You should be ashamed of yourself. I will burn you for this."
Originally on Geoshea's Lost Episodes Wiki
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