This is the comment I was searching for. How were they able to write such a classic episode about killing a joke, and now seem unaware that they're doing it themselves? Have all the original writers been replaced?
@@ninjapacman26 The fact that they keep bringing Bubble Bass, doing newer versions of classic episodes like Doodlebob, and also overdoing this joke makes me think that most of the new writers are fans of the show that used to watch the classic seasons. Either that or they're aware of the meme status of a lot of classic Spongebob and are taking advantage of that to make ratings traps for adults who used to watch the classic episodes.
I think it’s the second reason. They’re trying to pander to old fans by saying “hey look! You can make memes out of this!!” Why else would the facial expressions and overall animation be so over the top dramatic nowadays?
And if they didn't animate Fred throwing his leg up on the screen. I don't get why modern SpongeBob has to be so brutally in your face with the overanimating
@@BoredBingewatcher Modern Sb be like: Who wants random one-time characters who appeared 2 times That literally does nothing to the episode Just only for people who watched the show 20 years ago instead of making anything new
what made the my leg joke so clever was its timing it came right at a perfect moment there is just somethin funny of mr lawrence screaming my leg outta knowhere
The one where krabs tells Fred to shut up, the pants one, and the one where it didn’t happen would have been fine if spaced out but having them all in succession just ruins it.
I feel like they have to mention Fred's leg whenever Fred makes an appearance I miss back when “My Leg” was just a funny background joke and not just a forced joke thats unfunny
Yeah it used to feel so different back in the early seasons and Fred could actually appear in episodes without screaming “My Leg” while staring into the screen
the “also my leg, but mostly my face” clip made me miss when modern spongebob what somewhat watchable. now they genuinely can’t say anything about someone’s leg without screaming at the top of their lungs
A joke acknowledging it, one time would have been fine, but now they just have the characters shout it randomly, even out of context. You can tell how forced and corporate it became now.
How is even possible to flanderize a background gag? . Modern Spongebob team really fascinate me when it comes to ruining pre established jokes and characters motivations
"My Leg" is basically Spongebob's Wilhelm Scream. So this episode is the equivalent of naming every character Wilhelm and expecting that alone to be funny by proxy.
It's interesting because the gag was only loosely associated with Fred. Many of the other incidental characters were hurt when it was uttered, with Fred nowhere in site. It was a stock sound effect. You may as well make one about a guy who likes to hit his anvil every time someone is hit on the head.
What was funny about this running gag was that it wasn't acknowledged and it appeared to be the same fish somehow getting his leg broken every single time. The moment they started having other characters perform the gag on screen and acknowledge it was when they killed it...and that was before season 11.
Its funny that you were actually successfully gaslit into believing the character "Fred" always said that. He didn't, the only time he definitively said that in the pre movies episode was after Mr. Krabs threw him out of the Krusty Krab. Every other utterance of that in the show is either said by an offscreen character, or a different one. The modern episode that prescribed the quote to him only did that because of the "Rev up those fryers" clip that made that character remarkable.
Oh yeah? Then disprove the offscreen occurances were not this fred character.....seeing as when he does say it and its attributed to him it sounds exactly the same as when its uttered in the background.....this ain't the wilhelm scream....the gag was clearly attributed to that character
This is a braindead comment, even as a very young child I was able to figure out that the leg gag was specifically supposed to be Fred every time. He literally became my favorite background character because of it. The leg gag has ALWAYS been a Fred specific thing. Tfoh with this braindead revisionist history.
This was not always a fred specific thing until the episode "My Leg" if you think otherwise, you were either a dumb kid or you have a strange relationship with object permanence
It's the change in the voic3 that annoys me. Back then it had one distinct voice clip, and the fact that it sounded exactly the same every time, ON TOP of happening every now and then and not all the time is what made it funny. The biggest L the team took with the gag, apart from overdoing it, was changing how it sounded. It went from a shriek of pain to a scream just to be...loud and obnoxious. Like c'mon, he didn't scream that hard back then...
Kinda glad I wasn't the only one thinking this. Modern Spongebob oozes with creative burnout, and this was one of the most glaring examples. They seem to take early-season background gags and then turn them into entire episodes in the newer seasons.
It’s the Cartoon Caricature Effect, where every cartoon that runs on too long turns its characters and themes into caricatures of what they once were. They lose all depth, becoming flat, one-dimensional characters singing a single note.
Seems like they saw the community loved the gag so they tried to commercialize it. That completely ruined it though. The randomness of the scream was the great thing. They ruined it :(
Words can’t describe my disgust when I heard that people were only interested in the newer episodes bc gasp, the one joke everyone liked gets spotlighted, like I already knew the show was bad and having this joke being ruined was just the end of it, but everyone was happy about it? I just couldn’t see anything SpongeBob related after
I liked the "My Leg!" episode, but I do agree that they've run the gag into the ground. I think it started to lose it's thunder when they started being self-aware about it
Agree to disagree on liking the episode. I disliked it the moment I finished seeing it for the first time. I never understood why people thought it was a good episode of modern SpongeBob. The majority of what I heard when that episode first aired, was how it was a return to form of SpongeBob.
@@Justmonika6969 That’s true, but by no means do I mean that all modern SpongeBob is bad. But you’re right that it’ll like never be to the peak of what it was again. Especially since Stephen Hillenburg flew to the heavens years ago now!
if i had a nickel for every time nickelodeon turned a character's entire shtick into breaking their leg, i would have two nickels (and a desire to point out how weird it was that this happened twice)
One thing you didn't mention is that they pretty much turned Fred from a background character to pretty much a main character. Sure, most of the background characters have names and stuff, but the way they treat Fred here gives the impression that he is pretty much a main character. I mean, Spongebob and the other characters literally call him by his name. In spongebob, the main characters behave like the background fish are strangers, not knowing their name and calling them "ma'am" or "sir" or whatever.
I was like 9 or 10 when SpongeBob first came out and I thought I was imagining things when I kept subtly hearing what sounded like Plankton's voice yell, "My leg" in the background. My sister and a few school friends and I all caught on and thought it was hilarious. I had no clue Nickelodeon completely ruined it this badly. Wow.
The mention in Squid Baby seems like it was intended to be said when the guy walked past Fred but he wasn’t in the row of customers waiting. Honestly I didn’t mind it back then, it’s the first and thus then only time that gag is addressed and acknowledged and wasn’t screamed on top of Mr Lawrence’s lungs like in My Leg! and the rest of season 11+.
That one was probably the one that caused me the most pain watching. I don’t know but it just came off as so extremely cringe to me and didn’t even seem like a joke from Spongebob.
@@awespongebob the episode as a whole was cringe but I did find it funny to see SpongeBob being in the customer's way trying to change Squidward’s diaper and Krabs suggesting to go into the kitchen where the food is prepared. With the customers running off, a callback to Suds
At first it was a very funny gag like Wilhelm scream, and the idea of dedicating a whole 11-minutes episode to it didn't sound bad and the episode had hilarious moments like the beginning, but since then they have been overusing the joke to the point of becoming obsolete instead to make another real joke, I would have preferred that after the "My Leg!" episode the gag will only be used in the background in exact moments like it used to be before instead of giving more screen time spending it.
I guess I can see it being better if that was kind of the nail in the coffin for the gag. I didn’t find the montage that funny and to me it just felt very forced to me, it would have been a lot better if they actually showed scenes from older episodes where Fred hurts his leg to start the episode. That would have been a more successful attempt at fan service in my opinion.
Its at its worst when even other characters talking to Fred, are just shouting "their leg" to him mid-sentence, and out of context. I don't even get the joke anymore. It was only funny because it was a stock sound you hear in the show a lot. Sure they could acknowledge it, tongue-in-cheek buut man they just overdo it. Like its what they think is their shortcut instead of actual original gags.
It's something that comes up with so many parts of earlier episodes that made them great. The imagination box? Repeat appearances from Bubble Buddy or Nosferatu? Bubble Bass becoming a recurring character? The freaking Broadway musical lazily parroting the "is mayonnaise an instrument" line verbatim? It's all over the damn place and a huge part of why I don't buy that the show got better in the later 2010s.
I didnt know it was that bad... damn. Its why the writers shouldn't try to incorporate post-airing memes into the actual show. Its almost like they're pandering to what they think people find funny but overdoing it and don't even get why those things were funny in their episodes. Just removing all context of a joke, kills it. Next you'll see that sabretoothed prehistoric spongebob everywhere.
I like how in the first one during the montage is the scene from boating school where the lighthouse falls but in Fred’s perspective i guess the reason is being by the fact that boating buddy is the first episode where we hear that gag
Man it looks like in the My Leg episode the show literally became a parody of itself. Like, when you have all the characters screaming "my/your leg" for no reason, the original joke has been replaced by _making fun of_ the original joke.
Omg finally a review I can absolutely agree with. I don't understand how so many people genuinely liked the episode I dislike this episode so much to a point where I get annoyed of hearing the joke even in the old episodes unfortunately.
Even having everyone screaming it so loudly seems weird because I think he used to just wail it kind of pathetically. Now they have everyone screaming it almost angrily, when it was never even like that
In my opinion, when a running gag becomes so iconic, you need to be very careful when using it for it to not become annoying like it did in spongebob. In south park, when "they killed kenny" started to run its course, they literally just stopped and, while i can't remember if they brought it back yet, they have had several references to it without outright using the same joke, like how kenny's alterego "mysterio" is immortal as a canon explaination for him dying all the time. One way they could have referenced the joke without repeating it would be the scene at 6:18. I think it would have been hilarious if the scene played out the same but he DIDN'T say "my leg". That was one hell of a missed opportunity. Also, with the entire "my leg" episode, it would require alot of rewriting but, they could just make an episode centered around Fred falling in love with the nurse with the "my leg" only showing up in a brief clip to wordlessly explain why Fred is in the hospital in the firstplace, then probably not have it show up again in the episode (one example of them doing this kinda correctly, is during the "my leg" montage, he does the marilyn monroe vent thing while saying "~my leg~". That was actually hilarious to me)
I also never understood where the idea came from where Fred is the “my leg guy”. It used to just be a funny background sound effect, sort of like the Wilhelm scream in Star Wars. It’s not specific to any character, but is a recognizable and funny sound bite when you hear it.
There was this show on Cartoon Network called Class of 3000. They had a similar background gag but instead of the person saying “my leg” they said “ow, my eye.”
Unironically i found it funny as fuck and I still do. Part of it is the nostalgia from laughing at it when I was a kid. I don't think this joke is aimed at you as much as it is at people who found it funny as kids and enjoy the nostalgia of seeing it repeated. It reminds me of when I was younger and happier.
I haven't really watched modern spongebob but the idea of an episode about fred and even showing the situations he went through but showing his pov is something that sounds interesting to me. Going away from a conventional format and doing something different but special is something a lot of good spongebob episodes have done, but the whole being too forceful rather than just a small addition that people can appreciate is a big problem. They definitely could've just had it be the same small gag that can just make some scenes that much better. I can get trying to make some spins on the gag but the ways most of these are done just simply aren't funny. I think going from saying my leg to my pants could've been good because it can acknowledge just how often Fred has hurt his leg to the point of basically giving him PTSD which works as the gag, especially this late into the season, but so many of the other ones just don't work
This is a sad reality but SpongeBob has ran out of ideas. The animation doesn't feel right anymore and, as much as it pains me to say it, I think it's time for it to be put to rest. At least on a hiatus. There was a few Cartoon Network shows that did this back in the day the few years before they were cancelled. They just made a few episodes when they had ideas and ended on a high note.
I don’t like how they don’t use the original audio clip anymore not only do they make the joke the focus way too often, it’s also more dragged out and unfunny now that it’s not quick and snappy like the original scream
I think the problem is that they played into it way too much. The other characters just shouting it at him just because he is next to them seems to be past the point of it even being self-aware joke it could have had. Because its not even a gag in context anymore. Its like that episode of the Simpsons where Bart's class wanted him to say his catchphrase and he groaned at it feeling like it was expected of him to say.
I work in a restaurant and the little jack stands that waiters set their trays on is referred to as "legs." During a busy shift it's not uncommon for all of the legs to be taken from the little holder by the kitchen door. Whenever I leave the kitchen with a tray and there are no legs I will always give a hearty "MY LEG!" I don't care if they ruined the joke, it's funny as hell to me.
In the karate choppers episode it shows fred screaming my leg but the focus is drawn to the fact that spongebob just assaulted him rather than the fact that he hurt his leg
There was a NickToons show Making Fiends that utilised a similar gag. Almost all voice lines of a background character Marvin began with "My", like "my banana!", "my hair!", "my.... me?", "my sanity!", etc. They didn't even have a chance to overutilise it, though: the show got cancelled after 6 episodes (one month of broadcasting)
I always thought “My Leg!” was a really unfunny episode and don’t understand why so many people rave about it. I’m really happy I found that I’m not the only person who thinks that
"MY LEGACY!!!!!"
"My legacy..."
My legacy...
My Legacy……
My Legacy………
My legacy..............
it’s like a real example of ripped pants
This is the comment I was searching for. How were they able to write such a classic episode about killing a joke, and now seem unaware that they're doing it themselves? Have all the original writers been replaced?
@@ninjapacman26 The fact that they keep bringing Bubble Bass, doing newer versions of classic episodes like Doodlebob, and also overdoing this joke makes me think that most of the new writers are fans of the show that used to watch the classic seasons. Either that or they're aware of the meme status of a lot of classic Spongebob and are taking advantage of that to make ratings traps for adults who used to watch the classic episodes.
I think it’s the second reason. They’re trying to pander to old fans by saying “hey look! You can make memes out of this!!”
Why else would the facial expressions and overall animation be so over the top dramatic nowadays?
@@bandannadoo Nosferatu appearing way too often now like damn
@@ninjapacman26 yes they all have been replaced.
Didn't they literally warn themselves not to overuse a joke in season 1???
More employees
Squirrel Jokes? Yes, but for a different reason.
@@espurrseyes42 I think they're talking about the Ripped Pants episode
Pretty sure they had different writers, which probably means they had different standards or rules over time
I think the "shut up, Fred" gag would've worked if it were the only time they went meta with it
And if they didn't animate Fred throwing his leg up on the screen. I don't get why modern SpongeBob has to be so brutally in your face with the overanimating
@@Wulfjager To keep the kids watching, of course! It's not like we have an audience of adults watching!
@@TehPlaylistSpartan i found season 1-3 plenty engaging when i was a toddler
@@Wulfjager Those seasons were pretty good actually
@@TehPlaylistSpartan no shit
It really feels like the spongebob team has forgotten about what made the my leg gag funny in the first place.
Yes the exclusive timing they gave it to many attention which it ruined it
Don’t you know? It’s pre movie thus nostalgia thus worth of repeating as poorly as possible every other new episode
@@BoredBingewatcher Modern Sb be like: Who wants random one-time characters who appeared 2 times That literally does nothing to the episode Just only
for people who watched the show 20 years ago instead of making anything new
Not forgotten, they do not even KNOW these characters, just use them
Hillenberg wouldn't be proud
they forgot why everything the original did worked so well
what made the my leg joke so clever was its timing it came right at a perfect moment there is just somethin funny of mr lawrence screaming my leg outta knowhere
I agree it used to have perfect comedic timing and never felt forced
Bro PLEASE use punctuation, it's almost impossible to figure out what you're trying to say
@@TheScrubmuffin69 my bad
Pretty much nailed it, the subtlety made it memorable. The team somehow managed to flanderize a background gag.
flounderized*
The act of telling a joke so many times that it's no longer funny describes all of modern spongebob as a whole.
The show has went the way of “Ripped Pants”
literally the plot of ripped pants
The one where krabs tells Fred to shut up, the pants one, and the one where it didn’t happen would have been fine if spaced out but having them all in succession just ruins it.
It's because you're an adult.
It’s almost like the Wilhelm Scream.
Only bad part of return of the king is that its used twice in the same battle scene
No. The Wilhelm Scream will never get old.
Except there’s no show episode/movie milking the joke dry…yet…
It will never be funny and always ruin the movie for me
@@1marcelfilms A millisecond of stock audio ruins a whole movie for you? You’ve got weird standards 😂👎.
The "my face, and also my leg" part, was the end of that joke.
I feel like they have to mention Fred's leg whenever Fred makes an appearance
I miss back when “My Leg” was just a funny background joke and not just a forced joke thats unfunny
Yeah it used to feel so different back in the early seasons and Fred could actually appear in episodes without screaming “My Leg” while staring into the screen
The thing that made the gag funny was that Fred was usually off screen so we never really knew what happened to his leg.
They need to watch the ripped pants episode to realize where they went wrong with this gag
To think they had a *whole episode* about forcing a gag and running it into the ground. Now they ended up like the fool who ripped his pants.
I know I shouldn’t mope around and shouldn’t curse, but the pain feels so much worse.
Ok fair. But the "my leg?!?" on tv was funny ngl
Yeah, that is a really clever gag. Too bad all the cleverness went into it.
the Marilyn Monroe one got a laugh out of me tbh
Kinda like the “toast” from the ghost episode tbh
the “also my leg, but mostly my face” clip made me miss when modern spongebob what somewhat watchable. now they genuinely can’t say anything about someone’s leg without screaming at the top of their lungs
A joke acknowledging it, one time would have been fine, but now they just have the characters shout it randomly, even out of context. You can tell how forced and corporate it became now.
Yeah. Rewatched some episodes from seasons 6-8 and I think they’re good but not as good as seasons 1-5.
They might as well be turning to the camera and saying "get it!?"
@@planescaped yeah.
How is even possible to flanderize a background gag? . Modern Spongebob team really fascinate me when it comes to ruining pre established jokes and characters motivations
Or just ruining the entire show in general.
@@thardump859Its a rotting corpse
jesus this entire comment section really is an echochamber huh
@@TheJinx64 how is it an echochamber?
@@TheJinx64 Where'd you learn that word, redditor?
Wow, this is the first time I've seen someone have a SPONGEBOB OC.
OC?
@@GamingWithNikolasoriginal character
they are milking this joke to death in the newer seasons, it just feels really forced.
At this point, it IS forced
"My Leg" is basically Spongebob's Wilhelm Scream. So this episode is the equivalent of naming every character Wilhelm and expecting that alone to be funny by proxy.
Imagine they made a entire movie that's just a montage of the wilhelm scream
I’d actually watch that, lol.
It's interesting because the gag was only loosely associated with Fred. Many of the other incidental characters were hurt when it was uttered, with Fred nowhere in site. It was a stock sound effect. You may as well make one about a guy who likes to hit his anvil every time someone is hit on the head.
That would be pretty funny actually
What was funny about this running gag was that it wasn't acknowledged and it appeared to be the same fish somehow getting his leg broken every single time. The moment they started having other characters perform the gag on screen and acknowledge it was when they killed it...and that was before season 11.
Its funny that you were actually successfully gaslit into believing the character "Fred" always said that. He didn't, the only time he definitively said that in the pre movies episode was after Mr. Krabs threw him out of the Krusty Krab. Every other utterance of that in the show is either said by an offscreen character, or a different one.
The modern episode that prescribed the quote to him only did that because of the "Rev up those fryers" clip that made that character remarkable.
Didn't Spongebob karate chop him into the Krusty Krab floor at one point, thinking Fred was Sandy? That's also when he shouted "MY LEG!"
Oh yeah? Then disprove the offscreen occurances were not this fred character.....seeing as when he does say it and its attributed to him it sounds exactly the same as when its uttered in the background.....this ain't the wilhelm scream....the gag was clearly attributed to that character
Fred says it when SpongeBob hits him during the Karate episode in season 1
This is a braindead comment, even as a very young child I was able to figure out that the leg gag was specifically supposed to be Fred every time. He literally became my favorite background character because of it. The leg gag has ALWAYS been a Fred specific thing. Tfoh with this braindead revisionist history.
This was not always a fred specific thing until the episode "My Leg" if you think otherwise, you were either a dumb kid or you have a strange relationship with object permanence
It's the change in the voic3 that annoys me. Back then it had one distinct voice clip, and the fact that it sounded exactly the same every time, ON TOP of happening every now and then and not all the time is what made it funny.
The biggest L the team took with the gag, apart from overdoing it, was changing how it sounded. It went from a shriek of pain to a scream just to be...loud and obnoxious. Like c'mon, he didn't scream that hard back then...
it was like the sponge bob Wilhelm scream
Kinda glad I wasn't the only one thinking this. Modern Spongebob oozes with creative burnout, and this was one of the most glaring examples. They seem to take early-season background gags and then turn them into entire episodes in the newer seasons.
I wouldn’t say the joke’s running, can’t imagine it’s going anywhere with a broken leg.
as a kid i wanted to hear "MY LEG" more...... careful what u wish for...
This is all your fault. What have you done
@@Tommymad1 least im not chucky he crashed the stock market
It’s the Cartoon Caricature Effect, where every cartoon that runs on too long turns its characters and themes into caricatures of what they once were. They lose all depth, becoming flat, one-dimensional characters singing a single note.
Also known as Flanderization
Seems like they saw the community loved the gag so they tried to commercialize it. That completely ruined it though.
The randomness of the scream was the great thing. They ruined it :(
I feel like Steven Hillenburg would hate what SpongeBob has become if he was still alive
Basically sums up everything today.
Once something becomes "a thing" it gets ran into the ground until it's not even funny anymore.
Words can’t describe my disgust when I heard that people were only interested in the newer episodes bc gasp, the one joke everyone liked gets spotlighted, like I already knew the show was bad and having this joke being ruined was just the end of it, but everyone was happy about it? I just couldn’t see anything SpongeBob related after
Those people are coping. Classic SpongeBob is unfortunately not coming back.
Giving a running gag its own episode about why it happens was the worst mistake they ever made
Operation Dinkleberg: I’ll prove you wrong.
I find the “shut up Fred” funny for ironic reasons
That could have been the joke to end it on a high-note.
It’s not the same without the use of the “canned” version of “My Leg!”
Yeah, what happened. Did they lose the audio to that one or something?
4:27 Damn, they turned it into the Mr. Crocker "Fairy Godparents" joke where he's freaking out.
This show is the very example of a kid who learns a joke and keeps saying the same joke 100000000 times a day
I liked the "My Leg!" episode, but I do agree that they've run the gag into the ground. I think it started to lose it's thunder when they started being self-aware about it
mr krabs saying "shut up fred" got a chuckle out of me, but other than that i agree with you.
Agree to disagree on liking the episode. I disliked it the moment I finished seeing it for the first time. I never understood why people thought it was a good episode of modern SpongeBob. The majority of what I heard when that episode first aired, was how it was a return to form of SpongeBob.
yeah
@@captaincold2563 Those people are on some good copium. Old SpongeBob isn't coming back.
@@Justmonika6969 That’s true, but by no means do I mean that all modern SpongeBob is bad. But you’re right that it’ll like never be to the peak of what it was again. Especially since Stephen Hillenburg flew to the heavens years ago now!
if i had a nickel for every time nickelodeon turned a character's entire shtick into breaking their leg, i would have two nickels (and a desire to point out how weird it was that this happened twice)
Doofenshmirtz is That you? 😁
Who’s the other character
this is basically the episode where spongebob rips his pants but with a leg
Even when Jamaican Snuggie reacted to the My Leg episode, they said they were running the my leg gag into the ground
Sponge Out of Water was the last good use of this gag.
No way we got My leg dude documentary before gta 6 💀
Even though I still enjoy Spongebob, I can definitely agree that they need to stop running this gag into the ground.
One thing you didn't mention is that they pretty much turned Fred from a background character to pretty much a main character. Sure, most of the background characters have names and stuff, but the way they treat Fred here gives the impression that he is pretty much a main character. I mean, Spongebob and the other characters literally call him by his name. In spongebob, the main characters behave like the background fish are strangers, not knowing their name and calling them "ma'am" or "sir" or whatever.
Wow, i knew modern SpongeBob was terrible, but seeing those leg clips really drove that fact home.
I was like 9 or 10 when SpongeBob first came out and I thought I was imagining things when I kept subtly hearing what sounded like Plankton's voice yell, "My leg" in the background. My sister and a few school friends and I all caught on and thought it was hilarious. I had no clue Nickelodeon completely ruined it this badly. Wow.
The writers are now on the same level of humor as Spongebob was in Ripped Pants episode, but he at least acknowledged it at the end
The newer episodes also never seem to have any of their own original gags.
i never saw it as fred saying it tho, just as a background noice that whould fit most of the time
Its like having a whole movie using the Wilhelm scream
The mention in Squid Baby seems like it was intended to be said when the guy walked past Fred but he wasn’t in the row of customers waiting. Honestly I didn’t mind it back then, it’s the first and thus then only time that gag is addressed and acknowledged and wasn’t screamed on top of Mr Lawrence’s lungs like in My Leg! and the rest of season 11+.
That one was probably the one that caused me the most pain watching. I don’t know but it just came off as so extremely cringe to me and didn’t even seem like a joke from Spongebob.
@@awespongebob the episode as a whole was cringe but I did find it funny to see SpongeBob being in the customer's way trying to change Squidward’s diaper and Krabs suggesting to go into the kitchen where the food is prepared. With the customers running off, a callback to Suds
Congrats on integrating your character analysis with a modern SpongeBob rag session!
All to earn the Spongeboomer title
@@awespongebob those Squarelennials should be taught some respect
I’m using that
@@BoredBingewatcher LoL
At first it was a very funny gag like Wilhelm scream, and the idea of dedicating a whole 11-minutes episode to it didn't sound bad and the episode had hilarious moments like the beginning, but since then they have been overusing the joke to the point of becoming obsolete instead to make another real joke, I would have preferred that after the "My Leg!" episode the gag will only be used in the background in exact moments like it used to be before instead of giving more screen time spending it.
I guess I can see it being better if that was kind of the nail in the coffin for the gag. I didn’t find the montage that funny and to me it just felt very forced to me, it would have been a lot better if they actually showed scenes from older episodes where Fred hurts his leg to start the episode. That would have been a more successful attempt at fan service in my opinion.
@@awespongebob Well, that would also have been better and fairer
yeah after the episode my Leg The Gag wasn't funny Anymore
My Leg is the bad ending
Kenny death is the good ending
Its at its worst when even other characters talking to Fred, are just shouting "their leg" to him mid-sentence, and out of context. I don't even get the joke anymore.
It was only funny because it was a stock sound you hear in the show a lot. Sure they could acknowledge it, tongue-in-cheek buut man they just overdo it. Like its what they think is their shortcut instead of actual original gags.
Let's admit it, the writers are just trying to kill spongebob on their own now
“If you want to watch someone overuse a sponge till it’s ruined, turn on your tv to Nickelodeon”
- Huggbees
This gave me a nightmare imagining an Ed Edd n Eddy episode about explaining the sound effects
I never really noticed why the joke was funny until this video
Those guys reacting to the gag are adorable not gonna lie 😆
I never watched past season 5. Then one day I heard there was an episode devoted to the “My leg!” guy and that’s when I knew, “Oh. Spongebob is dead.”
It's something that comes up with so many parts of earlier episodes that made them great. The imagination box? Repeat appearances from Bubble Buddy or Nosferatu? Bubble Bass becoming a recurring character? The freaking Broadway musical lazily parroting the "is mayonnaise an instrument" line verbatim? It's all over the damn place and a huge part of why I don't buy that the show got better in the later 2010s.
I didnt know it was that bad... damn. Its why the writers shouldn't try to incorporate post-airing memes into the actual show. Its almost like they're pandering to what they think people find funny but overdoing it and don't even get why those things were funny in their episodes. Just removing all context of a joke, kills it. Next you'll see that sabretoothed prehistoric spongebob everywhere.
@@GeteMachine Exactly
I like how in the first one during the montage is the scene from boating school where the lighthouse falls but in Fred’s perspective i guess the reason is being by the fact that boating buddy is the first episode where we hear that gag
I liked how it was just a recurring gag every so often, but the episode where they run it into the ground for 11 minutes straight made me groan.
I kinda like that Fred is now like an actual important character kinda
Man it looks like in the My Leg episode the show literally became a parody of itself. Like, when you have all the characters screaming "my/your leg" for no reason, the original joke has been replaced by _making fun of_ the original joke.
Omg finally a review I can absolutely agree with. I don't understand how so many people genuinely liked the episode
I dislike this episode so much to a point where I get annoyed of hearing the joke even in the old episodes unfortunately.
Even having everyone screaming it so loudly seems weird because I think he used to just wail it kind of pathetically. Now they have everyone screaming it almost angrily, when it was never even like that
In my opinion, when a running gag becomes so iconic, you need to be very careful when using it for it to not become annoying like it did in spongebob. In south park, when "they killed kenny" started to run its course, they literally just stopped and, while i can't remember if they brought it back yet, they have had several references to it without outright using the same joke, like how kenny's alterego "mysterio" is immortal as a canon explaination for him dying all the time.
One way they could have referenced the joke without repeating it would be the scene at 6:18. I think it would have been hilarious if the scene played out the same but he DIDN'T say "my leg". That was one hell of a missed opportunity.
Also, with the entire "my leg" episode, it would require alot of rewriting but, they could just make an episode centered around Fred falling in love with the nurse with the "my leg" only showing up in a brief clip to wordlessly explain why Fred is in the hospital in the firstplace, then probably not have it show up again in the episode
(one example of them doing this kinda correctly, is during the "my leg" montage, he does the marilyn monroe vent thing while saying "~my leg~". That was actually hilarious to me)
The “shut up Fred” would unironically be funny if they went with that
The "shut up fred" was actually kinda funny
I’m ngl the season 9 “my legs” and planktons one actually made me laugh 😭😭😭
I also never understood where the idea came from where Fred is the “my leg guy”. It used to just be a funny background sound effect, sort of like the Wilhelm scream in Star Wars. It’s not specific to any character, but is a recognizable and funny sound bite when you hear it.
There was this show on Cartoon Network called Class of 3000. They had a similar background gag but instead of the person saying “my leg” they said “ow, my eye.”
This goes to show how too much of a good thing can ruin it. It goes for a lot of SpongeBob stuff in general honestly.
3:44 okay, that was kinda funny
One could argue that it had never even been a "running" gag
the second they took the gag from the background it was ruined
that is "modern spongebob" for you
Unironically i found it funny as fuck and I still do. Part of it is the nostalgia from laughing at it when I was a kid. I don't think this joke is aimed at you as much as it is at people who found it funny as kids and enjoy the nostalgia of seeing it repeated. It reminds me of when I was younger and happier.
I always assumed the "my leg!" was in reference to Wolfenstein 3D's iconic Mein laben!
Old thing good new thing bad 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭.
It feels like they just completely fucked over what worked about the gag and now it's just a shining symbol of why Spongebob's gone downhill.
yeah sadly it is
I haven't really watched modern spongebob but the idea of an episode about fred and even showing the situations he went through but showing his pov is something that sounds interesting to me. Going away from a conventional format and doing something different but special is something a lot of good spongebob episodes have done, but the whole being too forceful rather than just a small addition that people can appreciate is a big problem. They definitely could've just had it be the same small gag that can just make some scenes that much better. I can get trying to make some spins on the gag but the ways most of these are done just simply aren't funny. I think going from saying my leg to my pants could've been good because it can acknowledge just how often Fred has hurt his leg to the point of basically giving him PTSD which works as the gag, especially this late into the season, but so many of the other ones just don't work
I will admit tho. The "shut up fred" made me chuckle. They should've used that as a new gag
This is a sad reality but SpongeBob has ran out of ideas. The animation doesn't feel right anymore and, as much as it pains me to say it, I think it's time for it to be put to rest. At least on a hiatus. There was a few Cartoon Network shows that did this back in the day the few years before they were cancelled. They just made a few episodes when they had ideas and ended on a high note.
I don’t like how they don’t use the original audio clip anymore
not only do they make the joke the focus way too often, it’s also more dragged out and unfunny now that it’s not quick and snappy like the original scream
It could be a drinking game. Every time they are screaming "MY LEG" In season 9 you have to take a shot.
I hear you like alcohol poisoning huh? Lol
I don't think it's a *running* gag, perhaps a limping one?
I think the problem is that they played into it way too much. The other characters just shouting it at him just because he is next to them seems to be past the point of it even being self-aware joke it could have had. Because its not even a gag in context anymore. Its like that episode of the Simpsons where Bart's class wanted him to say his catchphrase and he groaned at it feeling like it was expected of him to say.
SWEET LIBERTY, MY LEG
You could say Fred ripped his pants. MY PANTS!
The mirror pointed at the tv is genius
I work in a restaurant and the little jack stands that waiters set their trays on is referred to as "legs." During a busy shift it's not uncommon for all of the legs to be taken from the little holder by the kitchen door. Whenever I leave the kitchen with a tray and there are no legs I will always give a hearty "MY LEG!" I don't care if they ruined the joke, it's funny as hell to me.
look at downfall of my education because i am watching this instead of learning
In the karate choppers episode it shows fred screaming my leg but the focus is drawn to the fact that spongebob just assaulted him rather than the fact that he hurt his leg
"my leg!" is Spongebob's version of the Wilhelm scream
There was a NickToons show Making Fiends that utilised a similar gag. Almost all voice lines of a background character Marvin began with "My", like "my banana!", "my hair!", "my.... me?", "my sanity!", etc. They didn't even have a chance to overutilise it, though: the show got cancelled after 6 episodes (one month of broadcasting)
I always thought “My Leg!” was a really unfunny episode and don’t understand why so many people rave about it. I’m really happy I found that I’m not the only person who thinks that
For the world can know the truth. “My leg” was taken from “the waterboy” by the middle where they’re showing a reply on the jumbotron
ngl my leg gag would the best as a wilhem scream