SpongeBob Meets the Strangler/Pranks a Lot

After SpongeBob is threatened by a litterer he got arrested, he looks after a bodyguard. Unfortunately, the one he finds is the strangler disguised.

SpongeBob Meets The Strangler is a masterpiece. It's kinda similiar to The Bully, except even more sadistic since the guy who's after SpongeBob wants to outright kill him. It sounds gruesome, but has the incredible twist of him unwittingly torturing the strangler with his stupidity. My favorite joke easily is him wearing spiked shoes for no reason at all and getting them stuck in his eyes... for 6 hours. I can't even imagine how horrible that must have been.
Then there's the neverending string of parties as the strangler begs to be alone with SpongeBob and getting stalked by him as he still thinks he's his bodyguard. They really make him the most naive idiot ever, but that's the reason it's so great.

Pranks A Lot is really funny too. SpongeBob and Patrick take up pranking, and after scaring a guy with invisible spray, they start pretending they are ghosts. As usual with these kind of stories it's the reactions of the villagers that sells it. One that especially stands out is the montage of everyone screaming "Ghost!", except one guy who says "Toast!" instead oddly enough. They go really overboard scaring Mr. Krabs, going so far as to block all exits so he can't escape. The twist at the end where Krabs pretends he'll forget about the whole thing just to invite everyone to stare at them in the nude is a genius sadistic move.

Hillenburg would return for season 9, but as a finale to his original tenure it couldn't go out on a much stronger note.