bedroom lights, to which he dejectedly abides. Reception and controversy In 2018, the episode was removed from rotation. While it has not been officially confirmed by Nickelodeon, it is heavily suggested that the "panty raid" scene and the wake of the MeToo and Time's Up movement has led to this removal. The sister episode "Great Snail Race" can be watched on Amazon (paired with "Gary In Love"), and can still be watched on Paramount+. In a 2019 ranking of SpongeBob's top 100 episodes, TV Guide listed "Mid-Life Crustacean" as the 79th best episode. 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." 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." References External links 2003 American television episodes Animation controversies in television Midlife crisis in television SpongeBob SquarePants episodes Television controversies in the United States Obscenity controversies in television Obscenity controversies in animation Television episodes pulled from general rotation