The Great Patty Caper

At the Krusty Krab, SpongeBob goes into the freezer to get Krabby Patties, only to discover that none are left. He and Mr. Krabs try to make more, but Plankton comes out of the vault with the formula. Mr. Krabs catches him and sends the formula to a bank, before realizing that he needs it back to make more Krabby Patties. He gives SpongeBob the key to the vault in which the recipe is hidden, and he and Patrick board a train to the bank for the safe deposit box. Eventually, the key is stolen and SpongeBob and Patrick must find the culprit. Just then, Plankton walks up and Patrick searches him but finds him clean. The duo stops the train and uncover multiple thieves, none of which hold the key. ==Production==

"The Great Patty Caper" was written by Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas, Steven Banks and Dani Michaeli, with supervising director, Alan Smart and Tom Yasumi serving as animation directors. Alexander and Cervas also functioned as storyboard directors. The episode originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on November 11, 2010, with a TV-Y7 parental rating. The episode was branded by Nickelodeon as a television special called "Mystery with a Twistery" in which: "Mr. Krabs sends the Krabby Patty recipe to a far away vault for safe keeping so that Plankton can’t get to it. But when Mr. Krabs forgets the recipe himself he gives SpongeBob the key to the vault and sends him on a journey across the ocean to retrieve it. Things go bad when the key goes missing aboard the Oceanic Express train and SpongeBob must identify the culprit and get the key back before the Krabby Patty recipe is missing forever!" "The Great Patty Caper" was released on a DVD compilation of the same name on March 8, 2011, by Paramount Home Entertainment. The DVD includes the episode itself, "Growth Spout", "Stuck in the Wringer", "Someone's in the Kitchen With Sandy", "The Inside Job", "Greasy Buffoons", and the "Model Sponge". On December 6, 2011, "The Great Patty Caper" was released on the SpongeBob SquarePants: Complete Seventh Season DVD, alongside all episodes of the seventh season. On June 4, 2019, "The Great Patty Caper" was released on the SpongeBob SquarePants: The Next 100 Episodes DVD, alongside all the episodes of seasons six through nine. ==Reception==

Upon release, "The Great Patty Caper" ranked as basic cable's top entertainment telecast for its release week with total viewers, drawing 6.1 million viewers. The episode also ranked as the week's number-one telecast with kids 2–11 on broadcast and basic cable. The episode received mostly positive reviews. Nancy Basile of About.com gave the episode a 3.5 out of 5 rating, saying "'Plankton Chugs Along' would have been better at regular episode length rather than stretching it to a special. With some of the slower, duller parts edited out, the whole episode would come off as clever, slick and fast-paced funny." Sandy Angulo Chen of Common Sense Media gave the episode 3/5 stars and wrote "There's still no hidden educational purpose to the series, but it does expose kids to plot structure, character development, predictability, and the various ways that humor is used in a story." Paul Mavis of DVD Talk positively reacted to the episode and said the episode "is certainly one of the more energetic entries I've seen from the series in some time." Mavis added "'Plankton Chugs Along' picks up a good head of steam to a satisfying conclusion (SpongeBob as an old geezer is also foolproof)," ==References==