"Blah! Snails….I can't stand those filthy, slimy vermin." Squidward grumbled as he tucked himself in his bed and pulled over the sheet. "I still can't fathom why that brainless oaf keeps one of them as a pet."
He sighed with relief and looked at his clarinet, which was lying on the pillow next to his. "At least I don't have to snailsit ever again. Goodnight, Clary." He gave his beloved instrument a goodnight kiss before turning around and trying to sleep.
But suddenly, a noise that sounded like something between a howl and a caterwaul penetrated the serenity of the night, making Squidward literally jump out of his bed and hit the floor with a loud thud.
Groaning, he got up and rubbed his head. "What was that?" a startled Squidward asked. He went to and looked out his porthole window.
He squinted his eyes and noticed a small, yellow figure sitting on the side of the street in front of his house.
"Spongebob?" the cephalopod said to himself. What was that yellow cretin doing out there at this hour? Didn't he have a snail to pamper?
Squidward wanted to let the idiot mind his own business, but a small feeling of guilt for neglecting his neighbor's pet compelled him to see what all this was about.
Donning his purple bathrobe, the grumpy octopus walked down the stairs and opened his front door. The light from within his house lit up the surrounding area and revealed a familiar square shape littered with holes sitting on the street, his back turned on Squidward.
"Spongebob?" Squidward came closer, just now noticing that the sponge didn't seem to be wearing any clothes. "What are you doing here at this hour, and in the nude? It's not even Wednesday yet?"
His question elicited no response.
"Spongebob? What's going on here?" Squidward was getting annoyed before crossing his tentacles. "Oh, oh, I get it now? You're upset because I accidently poked you in the nose with that snail plasma, and now you're giving me the silent treatment?"
Squidward huffed indignantly. "Real mature, Spongebob. Need I remind you how this would never have even happened if you had just allowed me to give Fred his shot? It's all on you!"
Still nothing. "Spongebob!" Squidward raised his voice.
Spongebob slowly turned around, and Squidward's face fell as he was confronted with a pair of black, soulless eyes. Spongebob hissed like a feral beast and revealed a mouth full of jagged, moray eel-like fangs.
Squidward screamed as the sponge unraveled himself, revealing a limbless, slug-like and slime-coated body. His eyes popped out of their sockets and were suspended into the air by snail-like eyestalks.
He regurgitated something and spat it out at Squidward's feet. It was an empty and cracked pink snail shell with a red spiral and blueish spots.
"Neptune save me!" Squidward screeched and made a mad dash back into his house. Once there, he slammed the door shut and pushed a huge closet against the door before leaning against it, breathing heavily and sweating bullets.
"Spongebob….what have I done?" The panicked octopus whimpered before suddenly holding that conch shell-shaped syringe. "This is all your fault!" he yelled at it and threw it away. Don't ask me why he kept it?
He hugged himself and muttered, "Okay, okay, okay, okay, get it together, Squidward."
Then, that bloodcurdling yowl echoed from outside again, causing Squidward to shift his eyes towards his window.
"The window!" he screamed and swiftly barricaded it with a dozen wooden boards.
He stepped back and wiped the sweat off his forehead, but then he saw two eyes poke out of a small hole in one board and the weresnail squeezed his way in, once more screeching and barring his fangs at Squidward.
Squidward screamed like a woman from a 30s horror film and ran upstairs, with Spongebob slithering after him. He chased him through the hall on the upper floor until Squidward reached the bathroom and once more barricaded it with wooden boards.
He jumped into the empty bathtub and pulled the curtains, cowering in there in a fetal position.
"What have I done! What have I done!" he raved frantically. "Spongebob, I'm so sorry! If only I had taken care of that disease-ridden pest none of this would have happened!"
No sooner did he say that, some slime dripped off the ceiling and fell on his nose. Squidward's pupils shrank and he tentatively looked up to find Spongebob clinging on to the ceiling and growling at him.
Squidward screamed once more, his mouth and teeth growing, with his tongue jumping out and his pulsating eyes popping out of their sockets.
He busted through the wall and crashed into the sandy ground two stories below. Squidward pulled himself out of the small crater and ran towards Patrick's rock, banging on it frantically.
"Patrick! Patrick! Please help me!" he screamed, but his pleas fell on deaf ears, as Patrick was sleeping like a baby, snoring, drooling, in his underwear and stuck to the surface of his rock.
Outside, Squidward heard that dreaded yowl again and ran away while clutching his head. His next stop was Sandy's treedome.
"Sandy! SANDY! Please save me!" he cried and desperately tried to open the hatch, but the thing wouldn't budge.
That unholy yowl was heard again and Squidward looked up and saw Spongebob slithering along the surface of the treedome, leaving a trail of slime behind him.
Squidward let out another wild take scream before bolting in the opposite direction, towards the Krusty Krab. He tried to open the door but it was locked. And only Mr. Krabs had the keys.
"Fishpaste!" Panicking, Squidward pulled out a shovel and started digging his way down and emerged back up inside the kitchen. He looked around for a place to hide.
"I'm not safe here! This place is filled with hole!" but then, his eyes fell upon the patty vault. Salvation!
He grabbed the hatch and opened it, running inside and closing all the locks and bolts. He stepped back inside the burger-filled safe and wiped his forehead.
"Pew…safe at last." He said calmly. "Mr. Krabs built this place to be impenetrable. No way can Spongebob get me now."
Right then, he felt something warm and sticky coiling itself around him. Squidward froze with fear and slowly glanced to his right where he came face to face with weresnail Spongebob, who growled and foamed at the mouth.
We cut to outside the Krusty Krabs as all we can hear are Squidward's deathly screams.
Then we cut to regular Spongebob screaming while flashing a flashlight at his face.
His scream immediately turns into laughter. "Some story, eh guys? Sure was sooooookyyyy!"
He was sitting on a log next to a campfire opposite of Squidward, Sandy and Patrick, the former two looking decidedly unimpressed while the latter had his head slung back and was snoring loudly.
"You call that a horror story?" Squidward snorted disdainfully.
"Yeah…no offense, Spongebob. But that was about as scary as homemade axle grease. And ya can't make cute little snails scary." Sandy told him. "That just ain't done."
"And why am I the doomed protagonist who gets killed by the monster?" Squidward raised an eyebrow.
"It's a classic tale about karma, Squidward." Spongebob explained helpfully. "It's about a character being too selfish to perform a simple task to help a friend and he suffers the consequences for it. Call it a cautionary tale."
"How does bein' a lousy petsider result in thuh pet owner becomin' a weresnail?" a puzzled Sandy inquired.
Patrick woke up. "Whuu…is the boring story over?" he asked groggily. "Can we roast marshmallows already, I'm starving!" he said petulantly, making Spongebob look peeved.
"Why not?" Squidward droned. "I don't even know why I came to this stupid camping trip?"
Spongebob shook his head in disappointment. "Ye scurvy life lubbers jus' don't appreciate a good scary tale anymore."
"What's with the pirate talk?" Squidward asked, when suddenly, they all heard an eerie fog horn and a glowing green mist encircled their camp.
Spongebob started chuckling, but his voice now sounded completely different. Squidward, Sandy and Patrick all grew concerned.
"Eh…Spongebob?" Sandy asked fearfully. "Is this part awf thu show?"
"Yeah, because it's working." Patrick added nervously. "I'm really scared now."
"Spongebob? I see no Spongebob around here?" Spongebob looked around, his high-pitched voiced was now deep and very gravelly. "Do ye?" he looked back at the three, his blue irises now glowing green.
The others exchanged fearful glances. "Spongebob?" Sandy asked.
"Spongebob" let out a gravelly pirate laugh and grew in size, morphing into none other than…
"The Flying Dutchman!" Squidward, Sandy and Patrick all screamed.
The ghost pirate roared with laughter, accompanied by thunder and lightning.
"That's right, ye unappreciative wee bilge rats! Tis me! The illustrious, terrifyin' Flying Dutchman!"
He leaned down at the trembling trio. "I always make it a point t' entertain me victims one last time before…. I TAKE THAR SOULS!" Cue more thunder and lightning.
He leaned back and crossed his arms, now talking in a casual tone. "It's called poltergeist courtesy."
"Now then." He grinned maliciously. "Enough lollygaggin', let's get down t' business!"
Squidward, Sandy and Patrick screamed in terror and hugged each other as the Dutchman's massive hand engulfed them.
This causes the screen to fade to black and all we hear is the Dutchman's maniacal laughter.
"I Was a Teenage Gary" is definitely one of the worst episodes from the classic Hillenburg era. Now, I understand that compared to the later seasons and all of their countless stinkers, this one feels like "Band Geeks" by comparison, and while not horrifically bad by any means, it still is a very messy episode with a lack of focus and kind of a rushed and unsatisfying ending. Even the title makes no sense, I get what it's referencing but there are like a thousand other werewolf movies and monster movies in general that they could have referenced for the title and which would have suited this episode a lot better. This one just feels very random.
But really, I mainly did this one because I was looking for an excuse to include the Flying Dutchman in one of the chapters and he, surprisingly, does not have an awful episode that could use a dash of logic. I didn't really add any logic to this one, just changed it around and elaborated on the werewolf theme.
Moral of this story: Always appreciate an old sea dog's tall tales.