After settling for bed in the evening and sleeping, SpongeBob has a strange dream where he is driving a hot rod in a Krabby Patty-themed location and he has his driver's license, then crashes into a rock. However, Mrs. Puff appears and tears up SpongeBob's license, and he is then propelled out of his own dream. He appears as a small, glowing version of himself in the outside world, where he sees himself sleeping. SpongeBob realizes that his soul has started travelling, and he sees Gary's dream cloud. He then jumps in.
In his dream, Gary has a humanoid body who can speak English and resides in a huge library. Gary tells SpongeBob some limericks before SpongeBob goes out of Gary's dream cloud and into Patrick's. His dream is completely empty, except for a kiddy ride that he is riding on. SpongeBob explains to him that in a dream, he can do whatever he wants, which he demonstrates by changing size and creating a million copies of himself. Patrick says he's already satisfied, and SpongeBob goes out of Patrick's dream cloud. The ride then stops and Patrick takes out a quarter but drops it in a sewer grid.
Subconscious SpongeBob.
Next, he goes into Squidward's dream, where Squidward is playing his clarinet for a king in a theater. SpongeBob distracts the king by telling him a limerick that Gary recited in his dream, and Squidward stops, angry at SpongeBob for invading his dream. The king furiously growls at him for not playing. After this happens several times, Squidward becomes so furious that he snaps his clarinet, but SpongeBob saves him by turning into a clarinet. It produces no sound, and SpongeBob just sings horribly, which surprisingly everybody applauds at. A crowd then picks up SpongeBob while throwing Squidward into a fruit cart, wondering how he can make such music. He then transforms back into his normal form and runs out the exit doors at the back of the theater. Squidward is knocked into the fruit cart by the audience and the king while they chase SpongeBob as he exits the dream.
Patrick's dream.
SpongeBob goes into Sandy's dream, where they are skydiving and have to land on a painted target. SpongeBob asks if it's "kind of dangerous," and Sandy says "Not as long as you got a big ol' parachute." SpongeBob misunderstands her twice (such perceiving "pair of shoes" and "parakeet"), and while trying to explain to him, Sandy fails to open her own parachute in time and lands in a truck filled with clam manure. SpongeBob falls out of Sandy's dream and says to himself "All right, that's it. No more messing with people's dreams."
However, he then goes to what he thinks is Mr. Krabs' dream, but actually is Pearl's dream, where she is having a tea party with her stuffed animals in a very childish and girlish setting. After realizing this, he immediately goes to Mr. Krabs' dream, where he's fishing for money. Mr. Krabs instructs SpongeBob to pull out his money net from his back pocket, which turns out to be Mr. Krabs' wallet. SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs manage to catch Moby Dollar, but it escapes and Mr. Krabs shoots SpongeBob out of the dream via a harpoon gun tied to SpongeBob.
He is launched directly into Plankton's dream. Plankton, in his dream, is a giant monster and can shoot lasers from his eye, and is destroying the city. SpongeBob realizes that it isn't a dream, but a nightmare. Once Gary is about to be crushed by Plankton, SpongeBob pricks his foot by turning into a pushpin, and Plankton deflates. At that moment, the angry Bikini Bottomites close in on him and Plankton tells them that he guesses he has some explaining to do, but gets his punishment by being stepped on by everyone else. Plankton then wakes up in terror.
"Does anyone have a quarter?"
SpongeBob then goes back to his own dream cloud, where just as he is about to sleep, the angry faces of everyone whose dreams he entered appear around him, making him uncomfortable. However, when SpongeBob wakes up in reality, everyone but Patrick is in his house, and are upset that he's messed up their dreams and tells him to stay out of them. Finally, Patrick comes in and is still thinking about that quarter from his kiddie ride dream, which confuses his peers, thus ending the episode.
Production
Script
On November 14, 2016, recording scripts for every episode from season 1 were publicly released, found on one of the asset discs for the PlayStation video game, SuperSponge. This included the recording script for "Sleepy Time."[2]
This episode was originally going to be included on The Friends Collection digital collection, but was removed for unknown reasons.[3]
Reception
"Sleepy Time" was ranked #70 during the Best Day Ever event from November 9–10, 2006.
Trivia
General
This episode's title can also be read as "Sleepytime" according to the script, treated as a compound word.[4]
With the production code of 2515-141,[5] this is the final episode of season 1 in production order, and thus the last episode to be conceived with the use of traditional cels in mind. Cels for this show were used until 1999, and digital ink-and-paint was introduced in 2000.
This is the first episode for a few things:
To have two storyboard directors.
To premiere in the 2000s.
To premiere on a Monday.
To take place entirely at night.
Where SpongeBob's shoes and socks are removed.
This is also the first episode in which he is barefoot.
Where SpongeBob is seen with a driver's license.
Counting the cameo of Karen's desktop form, this is the first episode in which all ten main characters appear.
To have SpongeBob's inward cheeks.
Patrick is the only one who does not get angry at SpongeBob for entering his dream.
However, an angry face of Patrick was seen immediately after Dream SpongeBob went back to his cloud.
The only main characters whose dreams SpongeBob does not visit are Mrs. Puff and Karen.
"My leg!:" In Plankton's dream, just as he is destroying a building.
Gary says "Beware of your wandering eye, you little poriferan" in his dream. The scientific name for a sponge is the phylum Porifera.
This and its sister episode were written by the exact same people. The same applies to the other positions in the opening credits.
This means that this episode has the exact same opening credits as its sister. This is the only time this happens in the entire franchise.
This and its sister are also the only episodes in the franchise where the storyboard directors are also credited as the storyboard artists in the same episode.
The video game Creature from the Krusty Krab is very similar to this episode. The game's third act, in which SpongeBob and Patrick battle a giant Plankton, is directly based on Plankton's dream in this episode.
In this episode, SpongeBob's and Mr. Krabs' dates of birth are revealed on their driver's licenses:
SpongeBob's driver's license:
A1356021
Expires: 12-14-03
Address: 124 Conch St. Bikini Bottom
Class: S
Sex: M
Hair: Yellow
Eyes: Blue
HT: 0-04
WT: 1oz
DOB: 07-14-86
Mr. Krabs' driver's license:
A5265661
Expires: 11-30-02
Address: 3541 Anchor Way Bikini Bottom
Class: S
Sex: M
Hair N/A
Eyes: Green
HT: 0-07
WT: 5
DOB: 11-30-42
The earlier version of SpongeBob's license.
According to a picture of a workprint of the episode posted by storyboard artist Adam Paloian on his Twitter account,[6] SpongeBob's license was originally going to look a bit different, with a different picture of SpongeBob and a different signature signed "S. Squarepants" instead of "SpongeBob SquarePants."
This episode's opening is similar to its sister episode's opening, "Suds," as both episodes start with SpongeBob having a dream.
When SpongeBob is laughing at the beginning of his dream, some of it is reused from "Naughty Nautical Neighbors."
Gary and Pearl were annoyed at SpongeBob, but SpongeBob didn't do anything in their dreams that caused trouble in any way.
However, Gary expressed mild anger when he saw SpongeBob in his dream, and Pearl was annoyed when SpongeBob blows off her dream tea party to ask where Mr. Krabs is.
In this episode, Plankton wakes up at an office desk. The desk reappears in "Truth or Square," Creature from the Krusty Krab, and "Plankton's Intern." According to the background artwork, the computer on the desk is "desktop" Karen.
At the time, Karen's name had only been mentioned in the credits of "Plankton!" and "F.U.N." and had not yet been said in an episode. This episode aired over two years before "The Algae's Always Greener," the first episode to actually name Karen on-screen.
Patrick's dream was later referenced in The Patrick Star Game during the opening or when Patrick goes to sleep.
Dub facts
In the Serbian dub, the Emily Dickinson poem was changed to "Među javom i med snom," a Serbian poem written by Laza Kostić. And, when SpongeBob visits Squidward's dream, he actually recites the same poem to the king.[citation needed]
Cultural references
SpongeBob tells Gary, "Curiosity salted the snail," which is a reference to the old saying, "Curiosity killed the cat," as sea snails are portrayed as the cats of the sea.
The name that Squidward has in his dream, Wolfgang Amadeus Tentacles, is a reference to the famous 18th century music composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Also, the Andante from his Piano Concerto No. 21 is playing in the background while SpongeBob is in Gary's dream.
Sandy crashing into a truck of clam manure is a reference to the running gag from the Back to the Future movies where Biff Tannen crashes into a truck of manure.
In one scene, when Gary and SpongeBob are walking along with the library, a book is shown close up. On the cover, the title reads Of Snails and Men, a parody of John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men.
In addition, Gary references and quotes Emily Dickinson, one of history's most famous poets.
In Pearl's dream, Roughy Goulet and Ricky Marlin, parodies of singers Robert Goulet and Ricky Martin can be seen on album covers.
Gary's poem is a reference to "The Old Man of Peru," by Edward Lear.
When SpongeBob says "Mind your wandering eye, you little mollusk" to Gary, that is a reference to the 1997 song "The Mollusk," by Ween from their album The Mollusk. In the song, the lyric referenced is "The mollusk lingers, with its wandering eye." The album helped inspire Stephen Hillenburg during the creation of the show.[8]
The part where Dream SpongeBob hears everyone’s voices scolding him references the 1990 film Home Alone, where Kevin McAllister hears his family's voices scolding him.
Errors
SpongeBob's driver's license shows him facing front, yet it shows him giving a thumbs up when zoomed out. This is presumably left over from when the driver's license had a different design.
The blue and red stripes on SpongeBob's socks are incorrectly swapped from their usual locations.
When Gary puts SpongeBob's socks on his eyes, the stripes on top switch to blue when they're usually red, and the stripes on the bottom switch to red when they're usually blue.
SpongeBob's chin is on his shirt.
When SpongeBob is in Patrick's dream, his chin is on his shirt.
When SpongeBob is outside Squidward's house, the window is shown open, but there is another window frame on the wall.
When SpongeBob comes to Pearl's dream, he enters at the left part of the house, but when he comes out, he exits from the middle of the house.
Pearl's missing nightcap, as well as her hair.
When everyone is standing around SpongeBob's bed at the end of the episode, at first Pearl's nightcap is missing. She also lacks hair. In the next shot, her nightcap is there.
SpongeBob's eyes turn paler.
When SpongeBob turns into a skyscraper, his eyes are paler than normal. It is possible that the quality of the cel animation on SpongeBob is due to this.
When SpongeBob's friends lash out for him ruining their dreams, they are at the end of his bed in a line from his point of view. When viewed from the side, however, they are standing on either side. Additionally, in the final shot, Plankton disappears from the blanket surface before he jumps up on it again to complain at SpongeBob.
In the Filipino dub, Dream Gary quoting Emily Dickinson's quote and the king mentioning Wolfgang Amadeus Tentacles is left in the original English audio.
Also, in this dub, when SpongeBob says "I can make a million of me!" in Patrick's dream the audio echoes, but when SpongeBob is asking "Huh, huh?", his voice doesn't echo.
In the Bengali dub (Duronto TV), all of Pearl's lines are left undubbed.
When Plankton says "Lick, lick," his mouth doesn't move.
When SpongeBob enters Gary's dream bubble, his screaming lasts a full second longer than the fall itself.
Mr. Krabs' incorrectly-shaped nose.
After Moby Dollar swims away until the end of Mr. Krabs' dream, Mr. Krabs' nose is triangular instead of its usual zig-zag design.
Browless Plankton.
When Plankton wakes up from his dream, his eyebrow is missing.
It is also missing in the shot prior when he is about to be crushed by Fred.
SpongeBob's house without one of its windows.
Right when Dream SpongeBob walks back in his house, his house is missing one of its windows.
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