Mrs. Puff, You're Fired (Episode)

Mrs. Puff, You're Fired
© Viacom
Episode No.:	69b
Season:	4
Airdate:	1 April 2006
Previous Episode:	Krusty Towers
Next Episode:	Chimps Ahoy
Characters	Voice actors
SpongeBob SquarePants	Tom Kenny
Patrick Star	Bill Fagerbakke
Sergeant Roderick and SpongeBob © Viacom

"Mrs. Puff, You're Fired" is an episode from Season 4.

Plot

At Mrs. Puff's Boating School, Mr. Fitz (Boating School Superintendent) is talking to Mrs. Puff on her high record of flunking students, in which SpongeBob is the only one, who has flunked 1,258,056 times. Mrs. Puff needs to show Mr. Fitz everything she taught SpongeBob. A few seconds later, SpongeBob has flunked another driving test. Mr. Fitz despite Mrs. Puff's evidence for SB being unteachable, blames his failures on her, fires Mrs. Puff, and a new boating instructor who has retired from the army named Sergent Roderick (most likely a shark) comes in and takes over the school. He has various strict rules in his class, one student is thrown out for talking and another is thrown out for eating. The other students become afraid and run away, except for SpongeBob, who is his only student.

The new boating instructor has set up a difficult road course with spikes, fire, etcetera as an obstacle course version and orders SpongeBob to learn it by crawling, walking without shoes, and running before he drives a vehicle on it. His methods of teaching end up resulting:

Test 1 Crawling: SpongeBob crawls across the road course until his hand lands and pierces over a pebble. He screams and crashes his way around the course. Roderick gets angered, takes out the pebble from SpongeBob's arm, smashes it and orders SpongeBob to try again. This time he is successful at crawling.

Test 2 Walking: Roderick takes off SpongeBob's footwear and as SpongeBob walks across the road course he holds Sergeant Roderick on his piggy-back. He presumably succeeds.

Test 3 Running: SpongeBob runs across the course and succeeds after surviving a hazardous area which unseeingly burns off his skin to his bones.

Test 4 Knowing the boat: Sergeant Roderick orders SB to take apart a boat. SpongeBob succeeds but is ordered to put it back together again which makes SB confused on the reverse part of the method. After several hours SpongeBob claims he did it but when showing Roderick his result they both see a rocket which launches in the air.

Test 5 Petestrians: Roderick sets up decoys around the course shaped like pedestrians and he sees SB run across the course successfully that is until he comes across his first fake pedestrian. SpongeBob gets scared, crashes into all the pedestrians and shatters fly over the course. He slides into Roderick across the finish line and Roderick glares at him. SpongeBob asks "How did I do?" Roderick says "Why don't you ask the shattered remains of this pedestrian...HOW YOU DID?!"

Test 6 Blindfolding: SB learns his course perfectly but Roderick tells him to perform every test taken previously but blindfolded. After months SB finally memorizes his way around the track blindfolded and is told to get on the boat.

Test 7 Blindfold driving: SB drives Roderick around the track blindfolded and succeeds.

After the tests are passed Roderick invites Mr. Fitz to see if SpongeBob can get his drivers' license finally but when SB attempts to show Mr. Fitz his blindfolding moves he is told it is illegal to drive on public roads blindfolded. SB without his blindfold drives through the school blowing it up into a mess of fire and debris, speeds to Bikini Bottom, smashes through houses, someone's apartment home on the top floor of a building, plumbing under the ground, through grasslands where Mrs. Puff is painting, takes Mrs. Puff aboard, rips off the car brake, drives back into Bikini Bottom destroying all buildings, hits Roderick away in the air when he attempts to stop the car, and hits Patrick to capture his pants. Blindfolded by Patrick's pants SB finally can drive perfectly but when he successfully parks Mr. Fitz tells SB that he only does not pass because on the test there was no "Destroy the city" part and apologizes to Mrs. Puff finally realizing that SB is unteachable since the best teacher could not teach him. He rehires Mrs. Puff to her displeasure.

Cultural References

When Sergeant Roderick comes in and talks about his second rule (no eating in class), then he offers bon-bons to one of the students, and after one of the students eats one, he literally throws the student through a wall. This scene is remarkably like the scene in the movie, Matilda, where the "Trunchbull" offers a piece of cake to a young boy, and punishes him for it.
After all of the other students flee from the classroom, Sergeant Roderick says to SpongeBob, "Looks like you're the man, sponge," a reference to Finding Forrester, and the site YTMND.

Trivia/Goofs

The Season 4, Volume 1 DVD case was taken from this episode.
SpongeBob can only drive non-catastrophically when he is blindfolded.
This is the first season 4 episode that doesn't feature Squidward.
In the episode Squirrel Jokes, SpongeBob revealed that he doesn't have bones. However, his bones appeared in the episodes Squid on Strike, Shell of a Man, and this episode.
Sergeant Roderick says that its illegal to drive blindfolded in Bikini Bottom.
Closed-captioning error: At the beginning of this episode, Mr. Fitz says that he represents the Boating Teachers Accreditation Bureau. However, the captions said "Voting" instead of "Boating."
In Boating School, SpongeBob had only failed 38 times.
"Krusty Towers"/"Mrs. Puff, You're Fired" was the last episode to get a 9.0 or higher on TV.com until Sand Castles in the Sand.
This is the second time we a see realistic sponge jumping from the island. The first was No Weenies Allowed.
It is possible that Sergeant Roderick and Mr. Krabs knew each other since they were both in the Navy.
The only mystery left is if Sergeant Roderick died when he was run over.

Characters

Quotes

Why don't you ask the shattered remains of this pedestrian...HOW YOU DID?! (Sergeant Roderick)
(Repeated) SpongeBob is unteachable (Mrs. Puff and Mr. Fitz)
The nerve of some people. (Patrick)