Snowball Effect (Episode)

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Snowball Effect
Episode No.:	46a
Airdate:	22.2.2002
Season:	Season 3
Previous Episode:	Doing Time
Next Episode:	One Krab's Trash

"Snowball Effect" is an episode from Season 3

Template:Spoiler

Info

Characters

SpongeBob
Patrick
Squidward
Mr. Krabs
Realistic Fish Head (reporter)
Mrs. Puff
Bikini Bottomites making ice sculptures

Places

Plot

As an iceberg travels across the surface of the water to Bikini Bottom, the temperature goes lower and lowers, until it snows. Everyone is having fun, building things out of snow. SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star decide to have a snowball fight. Meanwhile, Squidward Tentacles is relaxing at home with a cup of tea. They try to convince him to come out and play with them, both trying to get him on their own side.

Squidward decides that, as entertainment, he will watch them fight, hoping they will get hurt. SpongeBob and Patrick realize that snowball fights are for children, and they sign a peace treaty. Squidward tries to convince them to continue, but gets hit with a snowball. He decides to join in the fight. He makes a small fort and hits everyone with snowballs. Soon Squidward's fort has grown into a tower.

After SpongeBob and Patrick figure out that Squidward is taking it far too seriously, SpongeBob and Patrick go away, leaving a paranoid and riled-up Squidward to wreak havoc to nobody--except an overhead palm branch that keeps dropping gobs of snow on his head, as they relax in the pineapple watching TV with hot chocolate and popcorn warming up.

Trivia/Goofs

"The Snowball Effect" is also the title of a famous short story by Katherine MacLean.
Running gag: Squidward's fireplace is put out three times by a stray snowball fired once by Patrick (on the second floor), once by SpongeBob (on the first floor, which makes no sense), and once by Squidward himself.
What the narrator said about snow breaking off of glaciers then heading toward more tropical waters and causing snow underwater is obviously scientifically inaccurate.
In the beginning, the realistic fish head says "It seems old man winter paid us a visit late last night". This is incorrect, because the iceberg just came that same day, but they do not know that.
When it is snowing, the sky is gray, instead of blue.
A few Christmas songs can be heard in this episode.
At the end of the episode, if you listen carefully, the news man says "Bring out those coats and shovels..." while Patrick and SpongeBob are at SpongeBob's House.
This is the first episode with snow but no Sandy (second if you count that Sandy was mentioned in Bubble Buddy).
Instead of circles, Patrick makes a square snowball, a pyramid snowball, and a DNA shaped snowball. Later in the episode, a pile of square snowballs are seen next to Patrick's fort.
In this episode, Patrick can't make a snowball. However, in Survival of the Idiots, he made a perfect snowball (It's possible he was just trying to trick SpongeBob into making one for him, as he immediately throws it in SpongeBob's face, then SpongeBob cries, "Patrick, how could you?", and Patrick replies, "It's a snowball fight, remember?").
A tree appeared between SpongeBob and Squidward's house. In other episodes, the tree was never there.