Review: SpongeBob SquarePants “Ink Lemonade”

Drink up!

Overview (Possible Spoilers Below)

As Patrick attempts to start up a small business with his lemonade stand, it doesn’t go well until Squidward indirectly gives him a secret ingredient that starts to make him a success whether Squidward wants to further be part of it or not…

Our Take

Nickelodeon during its early years, always found it’s niche during the late 80’s and the rest of the 90’s in the era of gross-out humor, and I believe Spongebob continues to carry this proverbial torch in spades. There were moments where I gagged a little, but that’s to be expected given Nickelodeon’s track record, and despite brisk pacing, it was still easy to follow and didn’t leave me confused at the proceedings.

The art style & animation flaunt the gross humor with grotesque aplomb and it’s further emphasized with detailed close-up shots that feel very reminiscent of classic Ren & Stimpy. Of course, the secret ingredient should be obvious as the title implies, and and it makes sense given what Squids tend to do by nature.

Where I felt the episode shined for me the most, are the scenes while subtle, of Patrick displaying a level of intelligence that’s both elaborate & inventive in terms of scale, yet devious on a psychological level with the methods he uses to put Squidward into various scenario’s that cause him to shoot out Ink everytime he’s scared shitless for the sake of a sufficient amount of Ink, but you can’t help but laugh and be impressed by his efforts alone.

Overall, while “Ink Lemonade” mostly excelled in the kind of low brow jokes you found scandalous when you were two years old, it thankfully had the proper balance of delivering laughs to adults when Patrick’s impressive yet questionable methods to scare Squidward were put into action.