Squidward's house, the summer of 2008….
"I would like to announce, that Squidward's house will be featured in an hour-long, commercial-free House Fancy special, and Squidward will be crowned House Fancy prince of the year! An honor which was originally to be bestowed upon Squilliam, but now isn't." Nick Withers proclaimed.
"Yay!" Squidward cheered, while a stupefied Squilliam fell over and started sobbing.
"Oh, don't worry, Squilliam." Spongebob appeared over him. "I might be able to get Squidward to help you redecorate. He is a personal friend of mine. You know success hasn't gone to his head? He is still the same old great guy, he has not changed."
Squilliam sobbed even harder and that's when they hit the 11-minute mark.
The scene faded into a more familiar image of Squidward's intact tiki house once more standing at Conch Street, in-between Spongebob's pineapple and Patrick's rock, and Squidward and Spongebob were now the only characters standing there.
Both of them deflated, sighed and their eyes turned bloodshot and they were now sporting perma-stubbles.
"Oh, man. These new working hours have been murderous." Squidward lamented.
"You said it." Spongebob groaned in agreement. "We oughta report this to the Cartoon Union? Just because we're animated doesn't mean that we don't have rights." You knew things were bad when Spongebob of all people complained about being overworked.
"Shhhh…not so loud." Squidward pressed his hand over Spongebob's mouth and warily pointed at the road, where they both saw a car passing by which had an orange splash mark on its door, reading "Nickelodeon" in white letters.
Spongebob and Squidward tried to act casual and nervously waived at the two hulking fish enforcers with fedoras, who looked like the fake health inspector from "The Nasty Patty" and the Tattletale Strangler. The latter held up an image of Spongebob's parents to get the point across, making Spongebob gulp. The other one held up a photo of Squidward's clarinet, making him chew on his non-existent fingernails.
They observed the sponge and octopus for a few moments, before giving them a curt nod and slowly driving away.
Spongebob and Squidward both sighed in relief. "Gee, I miss Steve so much…" Spongebob sniffed dejectedly.
"Whining about it won't get us out of this predicament," Squidward groaned and turned around. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try and get at least five hours of sleep before we have to film the next episode at the crack of dawn."
"Letter for a Mr. Spongebob Squarepants from Nick Studios!" the mailfish appeared. Squidward halted in his tracks, filled with dread.
"Oh, tartar sauce…" Spongebob grumbled as he took the letter and reluctantly opened it.
"Been nice knowing ya!" the mailfish made a hasty exit.
A nervous Squidward walked up to him. "What does it say?" he said meekly, fearing for his life. Those Nick bigwigs never contacted them unless they were displeased.
Spongebob relaxed a bit. "Oh, nothing too bad? It says "House Fancy" is thirty seconds too short?"
"What?!" Squidward asked incredulously. "You're saying that stupid, improvised scene with the suddenly anthropomorphized toilet didn't pad out this episode to 11 minutes?"
"I guess not…" Spongebob's nose dropped. He had so hoped that he would at least have the afternoon to relax.
"Well, did they at least give us a script for how to pad out those extra thirty seconds?" Squidward asked exasperatedly and crossed his tentacles.
Spongebob flipped the paper and read something of its other side. But it was only one short sentence.
His face fell. "It says: "Improvise something, you worthless *dolphin chatter*"?"
"Is this a joke!" Squidward asked flippantly. "They can't even give us a *dolphin chatter* one-paragraph instruction?! It's only thirty seconds!"
"Shhhhhh…" Spongebob shushed him and they saw that same car with the same two thugs drive past them. Squidward and Spongebob sweated fearfully but the car drove by once more.
"Fine, fine…let's get this over with…" Squidward grumbled and crumbled up the letter. Not like it was of any use to them.
"But what are we gonna film?" Spongebob asked while suddenly holding a tripod camera.
"Something? Anything." Squidward shrugged apathetically. "Not like they care, as long as they get more episodes to inflate this season with."
"Anything? Does anyone even watch these episodes and give them their approval?" Spongebob asked out of morbid curiosity. "I mean, at the speed they are churning them out these days?"
"Pfffttt….as if!" Squidward waved his tentacle. "They are too preoccupied making and airing as many of them as possible to be bothered with any details. Why we could send them a scene showing me getting my toenail ripped off in the goriest fashion imaginable and I highly doubt anyone would even…"
A lightbulb went off above Squidward's head. He suddenly grew a big smile and rubbed his chin.
"Now that I think about it? I think I'm concocting a brilliant plan?"
"What kind of plan?" Spongebob asked, when Squidward leaned down and wrapped his tentacle around the sponge's head, pulling his face closer to Squidward's.
"Spongebob, this might be insanely risky…" he whispered to his co-star "…but maybe we can sabotage this show and get it canceled?"
"Canceled?" Spongebob's pupils dilated. "Squidward? Please, don't give me false hope."
"Oh, I'm pretty sure this will work." Squidward replied confidently. "The only way for a show to keep running is if it continues to have good ratings. If we want to sabotage our ratings, we need to get rid of our main demographic. And in order to do that, we must persuade their parents to forbid them from watching this show."
"But how?" Spongebob frowned. Their show was way, WAY too popular for that.
Squidward smiled deviously. "What if we pumped this season full of inappropriate content?"
Squidward's plan never worked. Three and half seasons of trying and he eventually threw in the towel. Now Kamp Koral and the Patrick Star Show are things that exist.
"House Fancy" is a very unique episode, if for no other reason than how it has managed to find its way on a lot of people's "Top Ten Worst Spongebob Episodes" lists, despite not holding a candle to all those bad episodes that have rightfully earned their place on such lists. That's because 10.30 minutes out of the episode's 11-minute runtime are….pure vapid mediocrity, nothing more, nothing less. No, seriously. If you remove that one infamous scene, the episode would have completely fallen off the radar. It's just a bland, run-of-the-mill season 6 episode. It even has a surprisingly happy ending (especially by dark age Spongebob standards), where Squidward WINS and triumphs over Squilliam. It's done in a very contrived and stupid way, but a win for Squidward is still a win.
But yes, the "toenail scene" is horribly out of place in a show like Spongebob. It's painful to watch (literally and figuratively), and I totally understand why so many fans find it disgusting and inappropriate within the context of this show. I wholeheartedly agree that, on its own, it is one of the worst moments in Spongebob history, but we can't judge an episode purely by one scene, we have to judge it as a whole. Plankton's suicide attempt in "One Coarse Meal" was also only briefly shown, but it was the conclusion of that episode's plot and tied directly into the overarching narrative (Krabs psychologically tormenting his foe, with some implication that he was intentionally driving him to commit suicide). But with "House Fancy", it's the exact opposite, the toenail scene is a totally random, madlibs moment that pops out of nowhere and serves no purpose in the episode (much like the ugly face Spongebob makes in "WhoBob WhatPants").
The scene with the couch feels like a filler moment that was added at the last second because the episode was a minute too short, and whoever penned the toenail scene must have either had too many martinis or he just really hated children. I'm someone who will say "Few things are inherently bad ideas, you just need proper execution", but I honestly can't see how you could make the concept of "Squidward gets his toenail violently ripped out" funny in any way, shape or form.