Another cheery bit of nonsense in this release, consisting of a half-dozen SpongeBob cartoons. The disc gets its title from the first episode, “What Ever Happened to SpongeBob?” In this story, our hero, rejected by all his friends for his consistent screw-ups winds up, after an amnesia-inducing bonk on the head, becoming the hero of a crime-ridden metropolis. Weird and funny stuff, and the same is true for the other pieces. That said, there’s even less of a connection than usual between the pieces, not even a hint of a thematic commonality that has usually been the case with these releases. What we have are six apparently randomly chosen episodes, adding up to 78 minutes of silliness.
Audio
Nothing much ever changes here. The sound is in 2.0. There is nothing wrong with it. The music, as ever, has a very lively mix, with a strong presence both front and rear. What is different this time around is that the sound effects actually make themselves known in the rear speakers from time to time, something that really hasn’t been the case until now.
Video
And here, too, we are looking at the same situation as just about every other SpongeBob release: wonderfully bright, crisp colours, zero grain, perfectly sharp images. Some of the releases have had some aliasing issues, and that is the case again here (SpongeBob’s outlines and those of his eyes show a tendency to break up). The problems aren’t severe, though, and on smaller screens are essentially invisible.
Special Features
Minimal. The animatic for “What Ever Happened to SpongeBob?” and four shorts. The presence of the latter is a little bit more than what has been the norm of late.
Closing Thoughts
Enjoyable goofiness as ever, just a bit more haphazard in the selection than usual.
