Spongebob VHS: "Happy Place"
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 old 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 I saw a particular VHS that stood out. It was a Spongebob VHS, it was in a large case like most VHS of them were. The cover was an image of half of Spongebob's face, with only his eyes showing, his eyes were closed, with a thought bubble of smiling fishes, smiling plants and 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 quite faded, there was also no description about the episode, the text being replaced with "Spongebob finds joy in the pure fields of his mind." I found it weird as a whole. I've never seen this episode before, and the text on the back made it even weirder. I decided to buy it out of sheer curiosity, since I might've found a rare unreleased episode.
It was around one dollar when I got it. I asked the old lady about it, she just said that she got it along with the rest of the other tapes, she was interested in it as I was, but didn't pay any mind to it, probably due to her job.
I walked out the store and walked to my house, which was just a miles walk from the town. 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.
Then I put the VHS in the VCR, sitting down on my small living room couch. The VHS made the standard startup noise and then the select screen popped up. I saw the title card, it said "Happy Place" in the shows font. The letters were in pink, the text was smaller compared to the other title cards from the show, the background was brown with the center of the flowers being green. Maybe it was just a 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 get to bed, see ya buddy!" Spongebob interrupted 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 of Spongebob's friends, why is he so worried about SpongeBob finding a knife? His back was slouched forward as he shakily walked to his rock house.
As Spongebob went to his room to sleep, for some odd reason he sat up on the side 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. Then he saw the room fill with smiling faces, everything in the room was smiling and laughing. He began to smile and look up 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..." Then I saw Spongebob looking down at the knife shakily, his eyes now large and ovoid in shape with the same expanded pupils, the room now expanding with more faces growing all over the place and the laughter sounding more hard and crazed. Then he looked up, his eyes now dark green. The screen went black for almost a split second second, like it was a blink. I was surprised at what I was seeing, 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.
The room 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 stab marks on it and the furniture was destroyed as well. panned over to Spongebob sleeping happily in his bed, also partly destroyed but not as much as the rest of the room, giggling only for a small second. Did I just see Spongebob go into a stabbing frenzy and destroy his room? I was completely baffled at how weird and morbid this all 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 still large and ovoid, his pupils were still that deep shade of green but his pupil weren't as expanded as last time. There were bags under his eyes, but they looked like they were scribbled under his eyes, he look disheveled and apparently slept in his clothes as well, 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 looks disproportionate and somewhat broken. 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 happy and cheery that it sound so unnatural for his character and unnerving to the situation. 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 the grab was so quick that it was like light speed. He then threw the fridge open, his eyes skimming over its contents. They looked dilated and devoid of life. He then found the snail food and 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 sail his food, his expression still stuck to that smile. Gary started to move away from Spongebob, as if he was completely terrified of him. 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, still on Gary's point of view. 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.
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 was going to do something very, very bad. As he was walking his saw other fishes on the side walk, he began to slow down and stare at them with his dark green eyes. He saw an imagined himself attacking them all with the knife and laughing dementedly, he smiled at that thought with that same creepy smile. He looked like 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 yeave been 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 donat wants t' know wha' happened t' th' last persons mental state 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 smiling faces, sound of laughter and began to say awful things about Mr Krabs, how he was so greedy, that he'll never share anything, that Spongebob was the innocent 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..." Mr. Krabs shivered, but Spongebob was too busy looking up at him with his expanded pupils and smiling, as he began to walk forward to Mr. Krabs' desk, giggling like a child.
I was completely surprised, yet very engaged 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 startling 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 devoid of life.
The knife distorted into view and near his crossed legs. The world around him and the knife began to morph into the same smiling faces from earlier. They 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 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 put the VHS away and collected my thoughts. I still don't know who made it, but I have a theory that the creator was just stressed with their own thoughts and wanted to make a cartoon about it. It was the only theory that made sense anyway.
Originally on Geoshea's Lost Episodes Wiki
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