| Series: | SpongeBob SquarePants |
| Episode: | 15B |
| Season: | 3 |
| Production: | 5572-210[1] |
| Director: | Frank Weiss (animation) |
| Prev: | The Great Snail Race |
| Next: | Born Again Krabs |
| Season Article: | SpongeBob SquarePants (season 3) |
| Episode List: | List of SpongeBob SquarePants episodes |
"Mid-Life Crustacean" is the second half of the 15th episode of the third season and the 55th overall episode of the American animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. The episode premiered on Nickelodeon on January 24, 2003.[2] It is no longer rerunning on Nickelodeon as of 2018, and is the only episode not available to watch on Paramount+. It is still available on home media releases and the full episode on YouTube with the panty raid scene, and pieces of the episode can be still seen ongoing on the Nickelodeon and SpongeBob SquarePants official YouTube channels.[3]
The episode's title is a pun on the phrase "midlife crisis."
Mr. Krabs struggles to get out of bed; after getting up, he asks Pearl if she thinks he's old, which Pearl says she does. At the Krusty Krab, after overhearing a patron comparing him to an "old and dried out" Krabby Patty, he asks to join SpongeBob and Patrick's "big night out" in order to feel young again.
During the evening, SpongeBob, Patrick, and Mr. Krabs partake in bizarre and childish activities, none of which satisfies Mr. Krabs. At an arcade, SpongeBob, Patrick and several children ask Mr. Krabs if he's "feeling it" multiple times, causing him to lose his temper and berate the duo. Preparing to cancel his night out, Mr. Krabs changes his mind when Patrick reveals that they are going out on a panty raid.
When the group sneak into a house to grab a woman's pair of underwear from her dresser drawer, they are caught by the home's owner, Krabs' mother; SpongeBob and Patrick never told him it was her house they were raiding. Because of the boys' lie by omission, she grounds Mr. Krabs for the rest of the night; SpongeBob follows him and apologizes, to which Mr. Krabs forgives him, saying in regards to being forced to spend the night in his childhood bedroom: "I certainly feel younger". As SpongeBob and Patrick leave, Mr. Krabs is ordered by his mother to shut off his bedroom lights, to which he dejectedly abides.
In 2018, the episode was removed from rotation. While the specific reason has not been officially confirmed by Nickelodeon, it is heavily suggested that the panty raid scene has led to its removal.[4] [5] [6] A Nickelodeon representative has claimed the episode was pulled because it was deemed inappropriate for young children, despite other episodes in the franchise containing adult and edgy humor.[7] The episode along with the sister episode titled can still be watched on home media releases with the panty raid scene.[4]
In a 2019 ranking of SpongeBob's top 100 episodes, TV Guide listed "Mid-Life Crustacean" as the 79th best episode.[8]
Allegra Frank at Slate commented in 2021 "...as a nostalgia buff who looks to Paramount+ solely to sate that need, seeing a small piece of SpongeBob history be stripped away by its parent company is jarring. There are tons of other 11-minute SpongeBob adventures to enjoy, but there's nothing like watching an episode and having that warm feeling of remembering it; I'm sad I won't get to have that with that now-infamous 'panty raid' episode anymore."[6] In a 2021 article discussing the controversy around the episode by Comic Book Resources, writer Reuben Baron considered it a great episode, reasoning "There's tons of great character-based humor driven by Mr. Krabs' mid-life crisis, Pearl's embarrassment about her dad and SpongeBob and Patrick's gleeful strangeness."
The episode was accidentally made available for streaming in July 2023 due to a technical error on the Paramount+ channel on Prime Video. The glitch was fixed almost immediately after.[9]