«Life of Crime», or the most Dostoyevskian SpongeBob Episode

It goes like this: Patrick and SpongeBob take a balloon from a stand, and they accidentally convince themselves they have become criminals, only to later realize it was a free balloon day and they had nothing to worry about.

The entire confusion begins with Mr Krabs explaining the concept of borrowing, something that could only come from an immoral businessman like him.

SpongeBob and Patrick then decide they can borrow the balloon if they return it afterward; the thing is, the balloon pops before they can return it, so they unintentionally become criminals.

This is where I link the episode to Dostoyevskian narrative, except that in Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov is a real criminal. SpongeBob and Patrick didn’t really steal anything, but their reaction is just as disproportionate and neurotic as Raskolnikov’s.

They abandon Bikini Bottom, and they embrace their new lives as fugitives. The episode’s brilliance is how SpongeBob and Patrick approach a fundamentally ridiculous problem. Instead of confronting the salesman with their misbehaviour, they decide to embrace exile and suffer.

So the situation escalates, and that becomes the joke. I think that has a name in comedy: ‘Snowball Comedy ‘, and it’s about ridiculous situations that are blown way out of proportion.

In this episode, the situation reaches a culmination point when SpongeBob and Patrick realize it had been Free Balloon Day all along, and they hadn’t stolen anything.

Perhaps episodes like these, or novels like Crime and Punishment, were made to teach us that life’s biggest disasters are mostly imaginary.

If you think about it, Mr. Krabs is the one responsible for the whole disaster. But the show doesn’t revolve around blaming him; it more so explores children’s (sometimes) disproportionate ( and cute) sense of guilt.

Much like in Crime and Punishment, SpongeBob and Patrick can’t escape the psychological consequences of what they did, and they turn out to be much worse than the material ones.

The fact that SquarePants managed to treat this topic in only eleven minutes never ceases to amaze me, and the fact that today, twenty years later, it still lives in my mind. Talk about greatness and creativity.

Still, even on Free Balloons Day, the two friends understood that crime doesn’t pay, and it leaves psychological and social scars that take forever to heal, and he managed to transmit the message to our younger selves.

Give it up for SpongeBob SquarePants! (And Patrick)