There's No Disgrace Like Home

There's No Disgrace Like Home

Plot: Spongebob enrolls the family into therapy.

Season: 1 Episode: 4

Total Episode Count: 4

Production code: 7G04

Plot
Spongebob takes his family to the company picnic at the expansive estate of his boss, Mr. Krabs, who fires any employee whose family members are not enjoying themselves. Spongebob sees that Krabs is drawn towards a family that treats one another with love and respect and tells his family to behave themselves. However, Patrick and Pearl run wild on the grounds, and Sandy gets drunk on the alcoholic punch. Spongebob laments his unruly family as they leave the picnic.

Spongebob tells everyone that he is going to turn them into a respectable family. He insists they sit at the dinner table to eat instead of the couch in front of the TV. When the rest of the family insist that they are not really so bad, Spongebob takes them on a walk around the neighborhood, where they see other families living in harmony, and one family thinks they are prowlers and chases them away with a shotgun. Depressed, Spongebob goes to Fred's Tavern, where he sees a commercial for Dr Gill Gilliam's Family Therapy Center. When he hears that Dr. Gilliam guarantees "family bliss or double your money back," Spongebob immediately makes an appointment.

To pay for the expensive treatment, Spongebob spends the kids' college funds and pawns the TV. Dr. Gilliam attempts to engage the family in traditional treatments, but they seem untreatable. Dr. Gilliam suggests a radical treatment, and hooks the family up to electrodes, telling them to send an electrical shock to each other when they feel upset, in the hopes that they will begin to associate hurtful behavior with the painful shocks. However, the family immediately begins shocking each other mercilessly, overloading the machine and causing the lights to dim (and causes Bikini Bottom to lose power). Shocked that his plan didn't go as planned, Dr. Gilliam unplugs the machine, admits that he cannot help the Spongesons, deeming them incurable. He then gives them double their money back, telling them to leave and never tell anyone else they were here. Spongebob uses the money to purchase a better TV than the one they pawned, finally earning his family's love and respect.

Reception
In its original broadcast, "There's No Disgrace Like Home" finished forty-fifth in ratings for the week of January 22–28, 1990, with a Nielsen rating of 11.2, equivalent to approximately 10.3 million viewing households. It was the second highest-rated show on the Fox network that week. Since airing, the episode has received mixed reviews from television critics. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Spongesons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, note: "It's very strange to see Spongebob pawning the TV set in an attempt to save the family; if this episode had come later Sandy would surely have taken this stance." They continue, "A neat swipe at family counseling with some great set pieces; we're especially fond of the perfect version of the Spongesons and the electric-shock aversion therapy."

Trivia

 * This episode was the first to be broadcast by the BBC, on BBC One on 23 November 1996, making it the first episode to be seen by UK terrestrial viewers (the satellite channel Sky One had shown the programme since 1990). Moving to BBC Two from 10 March 1997, it continued on the BBC until terrestrial rights moved to Channel 4 in 2004.
 * This was the first episode seen in Australia on Channel 10 in 1991.
 * Red, purple, green, blue: The colors of Jell-o molds Sandy makes for the picnic.
 * A sign outside Krabs manor reads, "Poachers will be shot."
 * The hypnotic show "The Happy Little Elves" supervises the children in the nursery at the company picnic.
 * Jim wears his plant I.D. even at the picnic.
 * The first episode that Patrick says his catch phrase "Don't have a Cow".
 * The first episode that the Spongesons have been shot at.
 * The police worm's name is Bobo
 * The phone number for Dr. Gilliam's center is 1-800-555-HUGS.
 * This episode is the first time the audience sees the cartoon Fishy and Scratchy. In this cartoon, Scratchy sticks his head into a fish-hole, and Fishy blows his head off by making him swallow a bomb.
 * When Spongebob is saying that they have to get 250 dollars for the therapy in the background you can see a teddybear on the lower shelf near the stero that looks exactly like Mr Krabs' bear Bobo.
 * Patrick and Pearl's college fund amounts to $88.50
 * Their TV is a Motorola, and the pawn clerk knows Spongebob's name when he enters.
 * The "perfect" family that Spongebob encounters at the end of Mr. Krabs' picnic is seen again later, behind the Spongesons at Dr. Gilliam's office.
 * Dr. Gilliam keeps his aggression therapy mallets in a gun cabinet.
 * The family acts wildly out of character in this episode: Spongebob is much more caring and actually suggests to eat at the dinner table instead of watching TV. Sandy is a drunkard who behaves a lot like Spongebob. While Patrick and Plankton have the same personalities, Pearl seems to act much more bratty.
 * Mr. Krabs looking at an index card to greet the Spongeson family is reference to Ronald Reagan, who was known to use index cards to greet families at his parties.
 * The family that goes out Dr. Gilliam's office before the Spongesons do, look exactly like the Spongesons themselves.

Rating
TV-PG-V