The Best Day Ever

"Best Day Ever" is a television special episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, airing as part of the fourth season and episode 80A. It first aired in the United States on November 10, 2006 on Nickelodeon. The episode aired after a 24 hour SpongeBob SquarePants marathon that ended with the television premiere of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. SpongeBob starts his day looking forward to having fun with his friends, but various things go wrong so he sacrifices his day. Best Day Ever was viewed by 6.7 million viewers. A music CD called SpongeBob SquarePants: The Best Day Ever was released at the same time as this episode. There are special Best Day Ever (A Random Act Of SpongeBob) Shorts that come with Season 4 Volume 2 In Disc #2.

Plot
The episode starts out with the song, "Best Day Ever." Afterward, SpongeBob's "Best Day Ever" does not turn out as he planned when he has to postpone his activities to help his friends with their problems. He wanted to work at the Krusty Krab, but that plan is ruined by a nematode infestation, so he lures the nematodes away by using his nose as a flute. He planned to practice some karate with Sandy, but that plan is ruined since she has to fix a leak in her treedome. SpongeBob fixes it accidentally by stopping the leak with his karate glove. He wanted to go jellyfishing with Patrick using his new high-tech jellyfishing net, but Patrick breaks his net and SpongeBob is forced to give him his old one, which Patrick also breaks, so Patrick makes a deal to take turns using SpongeBob's new net, but instead decides to keep it for himself and will not let SpongeBob jellyfish with him.

SpongeBob's final activity for the day is to go to Squidward's clarinet recital. However, once he meets up with Squidward, he says that he cannot play in the concert because his clarinet reed is broken. Angry because most of his day has been ruined, SpongeBob pulls out one of his teeth to replace the reed. SpongeBob attempts to enter the building, but the doorman will not let him in without a ticket. He tries various methods of sneaking in such as a fake SpongeBob marionette as a distraction, and cutting through the ceiling, but at last he is let in because he is on the VIP list. He gets in right as the concert ends.

SpongeBob is very mad that everything went wrong and gives an elaborate speech about how his "Best Day Ever" has been ruined. However, his friends tell him about how he helped them with their problems out of his kindness and teach him that his "Best Day Ever" is not about "perfect days," but about having friends. But to make it up to him, they hold a production in which SpongeBob performs his song, "The Best Day Ever" to complete his real Best Day Ever with his friends by his side. After a few hours SpongeBob is still singing, but his friends are tired and sleepy, and the audience has departed.

Production
Best Day Ever first aired on November 10, 2006 celebrating Nickelodeon's 30th Anniversary and during a 24-hour marathon of 100 SpongeBob SquarePants episodes. Patchy the Pirate (Tom Kenny) presented the marathon from on a boat in the New York City harbor. Nickelodeon asked viewers to vote for their favourite episodes and almost 3.8 million votes were cast. A marathon called The Best Day Ever Marathon started on November 9, 2006 celebrating Nickelodeon's 30th Anniversary and ran through November 10, 2006 and ended with the network premiere of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. This marketing method was primarily organised by Frank Tanki.

Tom Ascheim, executive vice president and general manager of Nickelodeon Digital Television, explained that Nickelodeon is using modern technology to generate interest in television shows. By allowing viewers to choose the episodes shown, Ascheim believes that this contributed to the high ratings.

Top 100 episodes
Leading up to the premiere of this episode, a marathon the of top 100 episodes voted by fans online aired. "Procrastination" was ranked the #100 episode and "Karate Island" was ranked the #1 episode. The rankings on TurboNick are oddly different from the marathon order, and some have changed in the process. The Top 100 episodes are shown on the table below.