Featured TV on DVD Review: SpongeBob SquarePants: Ghouls Fools

August 25, 2012

SpongeBob SquarePants: Ghouls Fools - Buy from Amazon
Dora the Explorer: Dora's Halloween Parade - Buy from Amazon.ca

It's not even Labor Day and we have Halloween DVDs coming out. No Halloween before Labor Day, and no Christmas before Halloween. I really don't see why this is so hard for people. This week, there are two Nickelodeon Halloween DVDs coming out: SpongeBob SquarePants: Ghouls Fools and Dora the Explorer: Dora's Halloween Parade. The latter is being re-released on Amazon.ca as a Bi-lingual edition, and I've previously reviewed that DVD, so there's no sense in going over it again. However, both of these DVDs will be featured in our Box Office Prediction contest starting on Friday.

The Show

  1. Ghoul Fools
    SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick are cloud watching when a flying houseboat comes floating by. Patrick wants to explore it, but SpongeBob is scared, and for good reasons. When they meet the ghostly pirate, they learn his ship has broken down and they need a new head gasket and SpongeBob and Patrick have to get them a new one, or lose their souls. When Mr. Krabs hears about the pirate gold, while Sandy and Squidward come along, the former for scientific reasons, the latter because he wanted an employee break room.
    There have been a lot of SpongeBob episodes that involve ghosts, as such, this one has a lot of direct competition. I do like the early exploration of the haunted houseboat, including how Patrick didn't believe any of the ghosts were real and thought they were animatronic, until he was served a pizza with anchovies on it. Also, the eternal horrors were fun. It's a very good episode, but perhaps not a true classic.
  2. The Curse of Bikini Bottom
    I reviewed this story here.
  3. Ghost Host
    The Flying Dutchman crashes his ship and decides to stay at SpongeBob's place until it is repaired. He's not a good house guest. However, he does so many scary things to SpongeBob that SpongeBob has grown immune to them. He's so depressed that he's no longer scary, that he has a massive crisis. Now SpongeBob needs to help him regain his scary edge.
    Seeing SpongeBob become immune to the scares the Flying Dutchman throws at him is a good idea, but the cartoon scares do become repetitive after a while. It's a good episode, but not a great one.
  4. Born Again Krabs
    I reviewed this story here.
  5. Arrgh!
    SpongeBob and Patrick are playing a board game based on The Flying Dutchman and his treasure. Mr. Krabs joins in, but he becomes so excited by the prospect finding treasure in the game that he decides to hunt for treasure in real life, and he forces SpongeBob and Patrick to be his crew. It's a first season episode and it doesn't quite have the fast pacing of later seasons, but it is still good.
  6. Your Shoe's Untied
    The episode begins with Spongebob watching something on TV he shouldn't be watching. Later on, Patrick comes in with his new shoes; however, he confesses he can't tie his shoes, because he never learned. SpongeBob offers to help, but SpongeBob learned so long ago that he can't remember how to tie his shoes. Eventually the Flying Dutchman gets involved in the story.
    It's a good episode, but not really scary. A cameo by the Flying Dutchman isn't enough.
  7. Money Talks
    I reviewed this episode here.

The Extras

There are no extras on the DVD.

The Verdict

Every episode of SpongeBob SquarePants has been released on DVD about a dozen times. (That is an exaggeration, but not by a huge amount.) Because of that, Ghouls Fools is good if you want the theme, but unnecessary if you just want all of the episodes on DVD once. The same is true of Dora the Explorer: Dora's Halloween Parade, but to a lesser degree. There are some double-dips, but not nearly as many as with SpongeBob.


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