Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy (Episode)

Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy
© Viacom
Episode No.:	6a
Season:	1
Airdate:	21 August 1999
Previous Episode:	Home Sweet Pineapple
Next Episode:	Pickles
Characters	Voice actors
SpongeBob SquarePants	Tom Kenny
Patrick Star	Bill Fagerbakke

Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy is an episode from season 1.

Info

Characters

Places

Plot

Whilst pestering Squidward, SpongeBob and Patrick learn that their heroes, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, are in fact living in the Shady Shoals underwater retirement home, and they try to bring the two out of retirement, much to the annoyance of the geriatric Bikini Bottom superheroes who only want their TV fixed. SpongeBob and Patrick go through all kinds of hilarious antics to reunite their superhero pals and eventually succeed, by Barnacle Boy getting tired of them and calling other former superheroes, thereby creating Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy's new show: The New Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy.

Cultural References

When SpongeBob and Patrick devote themselves to help Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, music from Jurassic Park is heard in the background.
Mermaid Man's outfit and super powers are both very similar to AquaMan, while Barnacle Boy is a parody of Aqualad.
Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy are also parodies of Batman and Robin.

Trivia/Goofs

The Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy theme as introduced in this episode is called "The Lineman", which was originally composed by Sam Spence for NFL Films.
Barnacle Boy was not the original sidekick of Mermaid Man. Originally, he was to hang out with an old coot named Barnacle Bill. Barnacle Bill, due to his marine mishaps, had a body made entirely out of driftwood. He also had flippers for arms and legs, wore a hat that looked similar to SpongeBob's Krusty Krab workhat, smoked through a wooden smoker (though he produced bubbles instead of smoke), and had a head that resembled that of the famous cartoon sailor Popeye. Stephen Hillenburg, though, couldn't find a use for Barnacle Bill, so he replaced him with Mermaid Man's current sidekick, Barnacle Boy.
Mermaid Man illegally moves one of his checkers into a red space before the screen switches to "King me!"
When Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy say "Dog paddle away!" and start dog paddling, you can clearly see Mermaid Man's socks are missing. After, they return when they dog paddle around SpongeBob and Patrick.
When SpongeBob and Patrick are first asking the man at the front desk to see Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, an article on the inside of his newspaper reads, "School Drop Out Rate Increases and Global Ocean Warming". Soon the newspaper is gone.
After SpongeBob takes his donut, there is a glazed donut and a chocolate-covered donut; Patrick takes the glazed donut, but soon Patrick's finger has the chocolate-covered donut when they unite.
During the scene where Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy are getting broccoli, there is clearly none in their cups; however, after Mermaid Man gets his, Barnacle Boy has three pieces (just like Mermaid Man) before getting an extra.
SpongeBob quotes: "Do you remember in episode 346 when the food supply in Atlantis was severely low?". That must mean that SpongeBob knows about Atlantis already, Aside from not knowing about it in AtlantisSquarepantis.