MovieFreak.com - SpongeBob SquarePants: Tide and Seek DVD Review

SpongeBob SquarePants is a talking square sponge "who lives in a pineapple under the sea." His relentless cheerfulness gets on the nerves of his grumpy neighbor, Squidward Tentacles. SpongeBob works as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab, owned by the kind-hearted but greedy Mr. Crabs. SpongeBob’s other pals are Gary, SB's pet snail, Patrick Star, a simple-minded starfish, and Sandy Cheeks, a space-suit wearing Texan squirrel.

SpongeBob SquarePants is back in Tide and Seek, a collection of 10 episodes, some of which originate from Sponge-A-Rama and Laugh Your Pants Off videos. The first episode, "Mermaidman and Barnacleboy III," welcomes back the adventures of Mermaidman and Barnacleboy, well, sort of. The two heroes leave for vacation and put SpongeBob and Patrick in charge of guarding their home. Of course, things go terribly wrong when Bob and Patrick unfreeze an arch nemesis from captivity.

In "Big Pink Loser," Patrick watches as SpongeBob’s trophy collection (for various accomplishments) grows bigger and bigger. To get one himself, he will do anything and go to any lengths to receive a golden trophy, such as following SpongeBob, mirroring his every move, and finally adopting his identity. Will Patrick ever get his own trophy?

In "Opposite Day," Squidward wants to sell his home, but the realtor needs to make sure the neighbors are not a problem. He invents ‘opposite day’ to get SpongeBob and Patrick to act the opposite of crazy and annoying. However, things hardly work out for Squidward, which this episode shows off nicely. "Squirrel Jokes" makes a stand-up comedian out of SpongeBob. When his squirrel jokes become a hit, Sandy feels their negative and demeaning impact. SpongeBob contemplates whether to continue his career or save his friendship with Sandy.

SpongeBob and Patrick find and take care of baby scallop in "Rock-A-Bye Bivalve," which soon turns into an interesting (and funny) social commentary on parenting. In "Dumped," Patrick becomes Snail’s new best friend, and SpongeBob will do anything to win back his pet, including adopting a new pet to make Snail jealous. Wait until you find out what makes Patrick Snail’s best friend, it’ll make you smile.

"Bossy Boots" sees Pearl, Mr. Krabs’ daughter, as a Krusty Krab employee. She changes the restaurant’s environment, uniform, and the menu (only salad and tea), which brings SpongeBob and Mr. Krab to contemplate firing her. Will SpongeBob be able to bring such devastating news to her? "The Bully" finds SpongeBob in an encounter with a big, bad bully in boating school.

In "Sleepy Time," SpongeBob gains the ability to enter the dreams of his fellow Bikini Bottom residents. This is probably the best episode of all the others, because it’s fun and clever at the same time. In the last episode, "Squidsville," Squidward decides to move out of the neighborhood after SpongeBob and Patrick get on his nerves big time. His new home in the gated Tentacle Acres community turns out fine, but then becomes one long bore. For some entertainment for his sake he begins to act like SpongeBob, which doesn’t go well with the other residents.

In summation, SpongeBob SquarePants: Tide and Seek offers some very decent entertainment as a few of the ten episodes included are pretty funny.

Paramount presents Tide and Seek in the TV show’s standard 1.33:1 aspect ratio. This presentation accurately portrays the material and colors. There are a variety of nice colors all around and they look pretty nice. Color detail is decent. Overall, this presentation is just fine.

Paramount presents Tide and Seek in English Surround Sound. As with the video, this audio presentation accurately emits dialogue and other sources of audio from the front speakers. All sound is clear and easy to understand. Thus, this presentation is also just fine.

2 Audio Commentaries – Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob, and Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of the show, sit down and talk about two episodes, "Dumped" and "Sleepy Time." They talk a little bit about the production and story of both episodes, but that’s it. These are decent tracks.

Besides that, you can access an animated storyboard for "Mermaidman and Barnacleboy III," watch a very brief (45 seconds tops) behind-the-scenes look at the SpongeBob mailroom office, view over 7 minutes of end credits, and sit through an assortment of trailers and previews.

You can select to view the episodes one by one or all at once by selecting the "play all" function from the main menu. No subtitles are offered. The DVD’s menus are not animated, but the main menu load-up is nice (after you select main menu from the Paramount logo load-up). Tide and Seek's 10 episodes combine for an approximate running time of 110 minutes.

Tide and Seek includes a few quality episodes, but on the whole the collection is just fine and should entertain every SpongeBob fan. The video and audio presentations are suitable considering the material, and this DVD release shows more nice meat in the extras department. SpongeBob fans should definitely consider making this a rental (maybe even a purchase). For anyone else, give it a try as a rental.

THE MOVIE	7
THE VIDEO	6
THE AUDIO	6
THE EXTRAS	4
OVERALL (not an average)	6