Rule of Dumb (Episode)

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Rule of Dumb
© Viacom
Episode No.:	77b
Season:	4
Airdate:	19 February 2007
Previous Episode:	Driven to Tears
Next Episode:	Born To Be Wild
Characters	Voice actors
SpongeBob SquarePants	Tom Kenny
Patrick Star	Bill Fagerbakke
Squidward Tentacles	Rodger Bumpass
Gary the Snail	Tom Kenny
Eugene H. Krabs	Clancy Brown
King Patrick © Viacom

"Rule of Dumb" is an episode from Season 4.

Plot

A starfish with a suit, tie, and briefcase comes up to Patrick's house and says that he is the heir to the royal throne of Bikini Bottom. He shows Patrick on a royalty list (Herb and Margie are on there) and Patrick is next in line to be the king. Patrick is pleased when he gets a shiny crown. SpongeBob decides to help by becoming Patrick's assistant. However, Patrick starts misusing his royal authority over all the people of Bikini Bottom to get whatever he wants. He takes away comic book collections, food and much more.

He gets, among other things, plasma screen TV, a satellite dish, a set of comic books from a geek, and an indoor, Star shaped swimming pool, and turns his rock into a castle. He even goes so far as to hire a construction team to move away Squidward's house. Then, Squidward tells everyone that Patrick is not a king and they all believe him and do not do stuff for Patrick anymore. Eventually, Patrick looks at himself in the mirror and finds out that he is literally turning into a monster. He decides that friendship is more important than power. Then the handsomely dressed starfish comes back and says that Patrick is not a real king. After wiping away a stain on the Royalty list, he found that the real king is Gary.

Trivia/Goofs

While Patrick orders an attack on Squidward, his house is black.
The episode name "Rule of Dumb" is a play on the saying "Rule of thumb".
This episode aired in the United Kingdom before it aired in the United States.
The quote "With great power comes great responsibility" is a parody of the same line from the Spider-Man comics.
After Patrick abdicates, Gary is the next ruler of Bikini Bottom. In the family tree, it revealed that they are cousins. Gary's father, Sluggo, appeared as an older brother of Herb Star. Thus, Gary is the correct heir.
There is a closed captioning error when Patrick starts to become a tyrant. After SpongeBob says, "what being king is all *about.” the captions suddenly freeze during the scene where Patrick takes the comic books away from the comic book collector, then, the captions fast forward to the point where Patrick says, "I love being king!", at the point where the captions play correctly.
First, there is a castle tower on top of Patrick's house, but at the part where he ran outside of his house in fear, the tower is gone.
It is known that Gary is behind the coffee stain before the stain is removed.
- In reality, stains cannot be removed from paper.
It is revealed that Patrick has overdue library books, like how SpongeBob does. See here: The Secret Box.
This is the first time Patrick's reflection talked to him. The second is in Roller Cowards.
In this episode, Gary's food bowl was yellow, while in the other episodes, it is green.
- Or it could be because he is now the king and the bowl may be gold.
It is revealed that one of the books Patrick is burning is called "How to Read", which is really ironic because the reader needs to know how to read first.
Richie Salmons is a obvious parody of Richard Simmons.
Patrick owns Fancy Eggs.
Patrick's reflection is most likely a parody of Norman Osborne's reflection in his (Osborne's) mirror in Spiderman.
Since Gary and Patrick are cousins it is most likely that Patrick hogged Gary in Dumped for this reason but was either unable to say it or they first met in that episode as cousins.
It remains unknown how Squidward would think about Gary being king if he disliked Patrick's rule.
Sister Sam wasn't featured on the family tree