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Spot Returns

"Spot Returns" is a SpongeBob SquarePants episode from season 11. In this episode, when Plankton's pet amoeba Spot produces offspring, he uses them for one of his evil plans.

Characters

Synopsis

The episode starts at the Chum Bucket, where Plankton is searching for Spot. He finally finds a fat Spot and gives him a snack. Then, Karen comes to check Spot out, as she is wondering if Plankton is giving him too many treats. Plankton continues treating him well and Spot belches in front of him. Wanting to prove that the latter is still healthy, Plankton shows Karen its insides with X-rays, only to see that Spot is pregnant. Karen explains to him that food-rich environments such as the one Plankton provided to Spot causes amoebas to reproduce. Plankton starts panicking, while Spot is generating other amoebas. Plankton is happy that Spot made it out fine and Karen starts smearing the new amoebas on her screen.

However, she gets overloaded from so much cuteness, resulting in her getting damaged. While she is rebooting, Plankton tries to control them. The amoebas destroy various things in the lab, leading Plankton to attempt to get rid of them, as they cannot hear him.

A happy SpongeBob is walking down the street, making bubbles in the form of an elephant and a caterpillar. When he sees a sign near the Chum Bucket that reads "Free amoeba puppy with order of chum," SpongeBob says hello to Plankton so he can see what is going on. Plankton tells him that he wants to sell Spot's puppies. SpongeBob offers Plankton to let him help have the puppies adopted.

At Barg'N-Mart, Plankton drives off two scouts and their bench with their biscuits so he and SpongeBob can make room for their business. SpongeBob suggests that Plankton starts acting politely, but the latter does not seem to want to do so, evidenced by him making two of the Barg'N-Mart customers run away as fast as they can. Then, SpongeBob takes some of the amoebas, only to make a big puppy. Dave notices it and wants the puppy, so SpongeBob gives him one. A crowd of people is waiting to buy one, including Mrs. Puff, who remarks with how cute those amoebas are. SpongeBob makes, with the help of his body, more of them. However, things do not go quite positive, like an amoeba who is alone at Mrs. Puff's house starts destroying everything, It then returns back to Plankton with a swallowed pearl necklace from Mrs. Puff.

All the other puppies returned with swallowed items. Then, Plankton comes with an idea to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula is now on his mind. He is about to start training them, but Karen is still rebooting, and Plankton finds it difficult to do that alone before calling SpongeBob to train his pets. As soon as the training starts, SpongeBob shows them how to do innocent things, such as sitting and barking, while Plankton is shown at one of them how to do other things for evil purposes, such as opening a door and catching a grenade.

After hours of training, Plankton introduces SpongeBob to the puppies: the Demolition Puppy, the Acrobat Puppy, the Identical Twin Puppies, and the Comic Relief Puppy. SpongeBob realizes that this has to do with the theft of the secret formula, and Plankton traps him inside a cage while explaining the plan he has in mind. Unbeknownst to SpongeBob, Plankton was actually explaining what the puppies were doing the whole time. While Plankton tries to open the bottle with the secret formula, SpongeBob throws with his tongue one of his eyes to Karen, which makes her fall to distract Plankton while SpongeBob orders to puppies to do one of the tricks he taught to them during the training.

The puppies end up freeing SpongeBob from the cage with switching a lever, and he takes away the formula from Plankton, who just raised Karen. SpongeBob decides to throw some treats at him, so the puppies can eat them and become bigger. The final size of them makes Plankton's restaurant blow up, with the formula rolling to Patrick, who is Mr. Krabs' pet in this episode. He gives the formula he found back to Mr. Krabs, who rewards him with a treat.

Meanwhile, Karen is now fully rebooted and looks at the amoebas on the floor of the restaurant again. She makes a maze of them, which results in a bigger amoeba. The episode then ends with it falling onto Plankton.


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Production

John Trabbic posted a rough storyboard panel from this episode on June 22, 2016.[1]

Art

Storyboards

  • Rough boarded by John Trabbic.[1]

Music

( ‣ ) Production music
( • ) Original music
( ◦ ) SpongeBob music

 • Tadpole Trouble - Nicolas Carr, Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [Title card]
 ‣ Tomfoolery - David Snell [The opening]
 • Hot Steel and Slide Licks 20C - Jeremy Wakefield ["All right, Doctor. If you say so."]
 • 8 Bit Flying Lesson 3 - Nicolas Carr [X-ray of Spot.]
 ‣ Wooden Bear - Tony Tape, Gil Flat, Florian Voelxen [Plankton finds out that Spot is pregnant.]
 ‣ Happy Links 1-5 - Paul Fenoulhet [Spot reproduces/Spot licks Plankton/Karen rubs the slime all over her screen.]
 • Hot Steel and Slide Licks 16A - Jeremy Wakefield ["You take a couple of hours to reboot, Karen."]
 ‣ Fresh as a Daisy - George French [Puppies eating everything.]
 • An Underwater Conversation 1 - Barry Anthony [Plankton wants to get rid of the puppies.]
 • Hello Blues - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob blows bubbles.]
 • Whats This Sting - Nicolas Carr ["Free amoeba puppies?"]
 • The Fruitcake Vendor 2 - Nicolas Carr, Barry Anthony [SpongeBob offers to help Plankton get the puppies adopted.]
 • Lap Steel - Nicolas Carr [Patrick lifts his leg.]
 ‣ Tom Fool - Van Phillips [SpongeBob and Plankton giving away puppies at Barg'N-Mart.]
 ‣ Dramatic Cue (C) - Ronald Hanmer [Mrs. Puff's puppy destroys her house.]
 ‣ Careless March - Marc Dall'Anese [Mrs. Puff's puppy runs back to Plankton.]
 • Vibe Q Sting - Nicolas Carr ["Puppy? You came back?"]
 ‣ Careless March - Marc Dall'Anese [All of the puppies get back to Plankton.]
 ‣ Drama Link (C) - Hubert Clifford ["...But perhaps there is something you could get for me..."]
 ‣ Drama Link - Georges Van Parys ["...like the Krabby Patty secret formula?"]
 • Hot Steel and Slide Licks 19B - Jeremy Wakefield [Plankton coughs.]
 • Hot Steel and Slide Licks 19E - Jeremy Wakefield ["No? Okay."]
 ‣ Prelude to Conflict - Sam Fonteyn ["Come on, pups! We've got some training to..."]
 ‣ Horror-Scope - Ronald Hanmer [Karen's still rebooting.]
 • Skipping to School - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield ["I'm glad you called me, Plankton. I am the best pet trainer in all of Bikini Bottom."]
 • Tadpole Trouble  - Nicolas Carr, Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob and Plankton training the puppies.]
 ‣ World in Action - Laurie Johnson [Plankton introduces the puppies.]
 ‣ Eight Dramatic Bridges - Ronald Hanmer ["Of course it is, and there's nothing you can do about it!"/Plankton puts SpongeBob in a cage.]
 ‣ Persuasion - Johnny Hawksworth [Plankton explaining his plan to SpongeBob.]
 ‣ Acrobats and Clowns A - Alfi Kabiljo [Comic relief puppy is shown.]
 • Nude Sting - Nicolas Carr ["That's never gonna work!"]
 ‣ The Escape - John Scott [Puppies appear with the secret formula.]
 • Hawaiian Misadventures B - Nicolas Carr, Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob distracts Plankton and takes the secret formula.]
 • Hot Steel and Slide Licks 6B - Jeremy Wakefield ["Come on, SpongeBob, maybe we could work something out!"]
 • Grass Skirt Chase - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield ["Sorry, Plankton. You leave me no choice."]
 • Slide Whistle Stooges 2 No Whistle - Nicolas Carr, Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [The ending]

Release

Trivia

General

  • This episode originally had the packaging number of 216a and was paired up with "The Clam Whisperer," but it was eventually changed to 217a, and was repaired up with "The Check-Up."[2]
  • When Karen names some of Spot's puppies, one of the names she chooses is "Vincent," referencing Vincent Waller, one of the show's crew members. She also names "Stephen," "Karen," and "Clayton" in order, referencing the Hillenburg family - Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of the show, and his wife and son, Karen Hillenburg and Clay Hillenburg, respectively.
  • Starting from this episode, Spot is a permanent resident at the Chum Bucket.
  • The photos in Mrs. Puff's house show Mr. Krabs and her pet snail.
  • Plankton's plan of the puppies going in the Krusty Krab:
    • Distraction with the Identical Twin Puppies inside the Krusty Krab.
    • The Acrobat Puppy goes inside Mr. Krabs' office and opens the window.
    • The Demolition Puppy goes inside Mr. Krabs' office from the window and opens with explosives into the safe, so it can take the formula.
    • The Comic Relief Puppy ends with a dollop of humor.
  • This is the first episode of season 11 in airing and production order.
  • This is Spot's first appearance since his debut in "Plankton's Pet."
  • This is the second episode where the children of the character returning play a bigger role than said character returning. The first was "Bubble Buddy Returns."
  • This and its sister mark the second pair of segments to have the same crew as its sister episode. The first were "Sleepy Time"/"Suds."

Episode references

  • When SpongeBob is blowing bubbles, he makes an elephant bubble and a caterpillar bubble, the same ones from "Bubblestand."

Cultural references

  • Karen's rebooting sound effect sounds like one of the old Macintosh sound effects.

Video

SpongeBob_SquarePants_-_Free_Amoeba_Puppy_Nickelodeon

Names in other languages

Language Name Meaning
German Amöbennachwuchs Amoeba Offspring
Russian Цап возвращается
Tsap vozvrashchaetsya		 Spot Returns
Spanish (American) Mancha regresa Spot Returns
Spanish (European) El regreso de Mancha The Returns of Spot

References

  1. ^ a b John Trabbic on Instagram - "Oh for the love of-"
  2. ^ New Episode Titles! (Rest of Season 9?) | Page 3 | SpongeBuddy Mania Forums