 I'm sure you all remember the pilot episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, Help Wanted. What most people don't know however, is that there was an earlier episode entitled, Bought the Sponge, Baiting Back to 1998. I, or rather my niece, stumbled across a page on the Nickelodeon website asking for my details to join some sort of SpongeBob SquarePants fan club, which I hesitantly signed up for. A few days later, a SpongeBob box set arrived at my house by courier, along with a single VHS with the label, Bought the Sponge, 1998. It started with a black screen. The music was pretty inerving, it sounded like a slowed down ukulele tune being played backwards, and it was continuously looping throughout the episode. After about 20 seconds, a still image of Tom Kenny dressed as Pachy the pirate sitting in an oversized bathtub appeared, staying for exactly six seconds followed by a title card reading, Bought the Sponge, in a plain font. Then the episode began. It was basically SpongeBob, or Bought the Sponge, going around the Bikini Bottom visiting his friends, only there were no voices despite the characters moving their mouths. This bikini bottom however, was really different from the one you are accustomed to, some of the major differences being, Sandy, she had no underwater gear, and her house was a log cabin, not the tree dome seen on later episodes. Mr. Crabs, he is seen with a female crab goo maybe his wife, or an early version of Pearl. Squidward, his house is a windmill, as opposed to the Easter Island had seen on the rest of the series, also, his house has changed places with Patrick's house. Plankton, he seems to be the same size as the other characters, his body is red and he has only one antenna sticking out the top of his head. Nothing unusual seemed to happen in the episode until the end. SpongeBob was standing in the middle of nowhere looking up to the sky and laughing. The screen then panned up to show just what he was laughing at, Sandy's drowned corpse, floating on the water's surface. Her body just bought in the water, for about 10 seconds, after which the episode began playing backwards, until it got back to the live action still of Pachy. The title card appeared again, this time the font was nearly eligible, like it was handwritten. The episode started playing again, though there was no buildings or anything, just characters interacting on a bright green background. This time, when the characters opened their mouths to talk, garbled sounds came out, though I couldn't understand them. The episode played through like that, until it got to the image of Sandy's dead body. The episode began playing backwards again and this time, when it got to the image of Pachy the pirate, he got up and started screaming real loudly, and thrashing his limbs, while his blood shone eyes darting frantically. The episode started again, with the same handwritten title card, the sounds of Tom Kenny screaming and splashing is still present. This time there were just colored blurs moving around a black background making really unsettling guardling noises. The episode played like this, until it got to the end, however this time, it cut straight to Pachy the pirate who simply said, Hey kids, stay tuned for help one-two. Before cutting to seven minutes of static.