100 Favorite Shows: #9 — SpongeBob SquarePants
“See you later, Bran Flakes. What a nice cereal box.”
Stephen Hillenburg was just a professor of marine biology when he wrote a book entitled, The Intertidal Zone, which aimed to be his definitive text on aquatic animals for his students to read and learn from. Working doubly as an animation director, Hillenburg fused his scientific ideas with the television format after Nickelodeon parted ways with Rocko’s Modern Life. From his two passions came SpongeBob SquarePants, an underwater series about SpongeBob (Tom Kenny), a sponge who worked as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab and got into adventures with his jelly-fishing, clarinet-playing, karate-chopping best friends. SpongeBob debuted on May 1, 1999 and immediately became Nickelodeon’s flagship series, carrying the network (and eventually the brand) across decades and across shifts in creative direction (from Hillenburg to Paul Tibbitt to Marc Ceccarelli and Vincent Waller). 262 episodes later, SpongeBob is still airing, with a thirteenth season (and a new movie, the third in the SpongeBob film trilogy) on the way. To all those who watched it growing up, including myself (and a number of tag-along adults, who saw the merit in it), the particular style of comedy on SpongeBob has shaped a generation’s sense of humor forever.
(This essay features spoilers for SpongeBob SquarePants, Scrubs, and Psych. You know, the big three.)
Part of the episodic traditions of Spongebob SquarePants includes a barrage of references to the seaside setting of the series and the marine capabilities of the various characters. “Tartar sauce!” is the expletive of choice for the titular SpongeBob, who can split his body in half, float from absorbance of the water around him, and eat a bucket of his own arms. Yes, he’s dressed in a belt and a red tie and knee-high socks and yes, he lives in a pineapple home and works a fry cook job to support himself. (Bikini Bottom itself operates as a standard community by the shore, with a “boating” school, a retirement home, and a beach, Goo Lagoon.) But he’s still a sponge and sponges are able to engage in all sorts of bodily mutilation that harms them not.
These cosmetic allusions to the science behind marine creatures was part of Hillenburg’s particular style of animation, blended with what fascinates him in all regions of his life and knowledge. However, the elements of the show that were “for him,” did not stop with subtle, routine depictions of the aquatic depths. What was “for” Hillenburg and the other creative staffers on SpongeBob also applied to an extremely niche sense of humor they possessed. The jokes on SpongeBob often delighted the writers and went over children’s heads (to the point where the various double entendres have inspired endless clickbait lists for nostalgic millennials). If they were laughing, the confidence was that the audience would be laughing, too.
Sometimes, these jokes were just various non sequiturs that almost read as counter-intuitive to include in a tight eleven minute run time (“This isn’t your everyday darkness; this is advanced darkness,” Spongebob hauntingly remarks while stuck in Rock Bottom in a moment that isn’t outwardly funny, save for the fact that SpongeBob took the time to utter it in the first place). Other times, the jokes twist up the frames for brief, out-of-character moments (when best friend Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke) asks SpongeBob if people are running away from him because he’s ugly, SpongeBob flicks his eyebrows and points finger guns before quipping, “You gotta be kidding me” as stars and ceremonial music surround him, before promptly returning to the episode’s conflict). Sometimes, SpongeBob was just content to make visual allusions — from The Phantom of the Opera to Nosferatu — beyond the reference scope of kids.
This moment with Nosferatu comes at the end of “Graveyard Shift,” in which SpongeBob and coworker Squidward (Rodger Bumpass) are tasked with manning the Krusty Krab overnight and take turns attempting to scare one another. The flickering lights of the restaurant are eventually revealed to be the work of the original Max Schreck depiction of Nosferatu. It’s utter nonsense to adults, but honestly terrifying to children. I remember being scared by the idea that this bizarre, old-timey vampire was messing with SpongeBob and Squidward just off-screen because SpongeBob could be so many different things. A tribute to marine biology, a goofy cartoon for children, and an absolute horror machine. I was just as scared by Nosferatu as I was by the concept of a rule-abiding sea bear, a dead health inspector, an underwater gorilla, a series of ominous hooks, a Halloween costume with an exposed brain, and “I Was a Teenage Gary,” which sees SpongeBob and Squidward turn into snails.
It’s almost immoral how much trauma these moments inflicted upon me as a child (that snail episode is still unwatchable for me), but SpongeBob was never afraid to push the boundaries. One deeply unsettling episode from the first season, “Rock Bottom,” depicts this intrinsic quality of the Nickelodeon series in tandem with the unsettling chills that could be provided by the stories.
In “Rock Bottom,” SpongeBob winds up stranded in a seedy underground community just east of Bikini Bottom, which is defined by Murphy’s Law, as SpongeBob is unable to procure a candy bar or catch a bus back home. Because SpongeBob always sees the best in everyone he encounters (even boss Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown), who greedily sacrifices SpongeBob to the Flying Dutchman (Brian Doyle-Murray) at one point, and nemesis Plankton (Mr. Lawrence), who actively attempts to murder SpongeBob on multiple occasions), it’s incredibly easy to be on his side (the side of optimism) and rooting for him. Even when he’s slapping the bus driver around with a balloon from Glove World, his behavior isn’t malicious; it’s just innocent. This endless hope and kindness in his small, yellow frame is gravitational for the audience and we can’t help but root for SpongeBob to conquer Rock Bottom.
Empathy is also derived from how SpongeBob is essentially enduring the immigrant experience in Rock Bottom. Other fish blowing raspberries remark that SpongeBob’s tongue-less manner of speaking is an impossible-to-decipher accent. The bathroom signs and bus schedules are impossible to read. SpongeBob is truly a sponge out of water for the entire episode, which might not be too far away from those who immigrate to foreign countries and struggle with speaking the dominant language. In Rock Bottom, only one character possessed any shred of empathy for SpongeBob, so the rest was left to us, rooting for his endless buoyant demeanor to persist against the hardships posed to him.
SpongeBob’s endless enthusiasm is also evident from the first seconds of my favorite episode from the series, “Pizza Delivery,” also from season one and written by Sherm Cohen, Aaron Springer, and Peter Burns. It’s closing time at the Krusty Krab, but SpongeBob isn’t ready to go home as he dives for the ringing telephone and slides into frame with an eager grin after Mr. Krabs speaks to the customer and determines that SpongeBob and Squidward will spend their off-hours delivering a pizza — even though they’ve never cooked pizzas before. SpongeBob willingly abides by Mr. Krabs’ over-working (surely a violation of some union rules) and accompanies Squidward on a journey to please the proverbial “customer,” whom dominates SpongeBob’s ideology while working.
Like most installments of SpongeBob, it’s just eleven minutes long, but “Pizza Delivery” manages to capture the oppressive feeling of an endless journey on the same level as some episodes from Breaking Bad that threw the characters out into the New Mexico desert. The repetitive terrains passing by in the background, the lifeless winds (which stop for a moment to allow SpongeBob to gasp and scold Squidward for insulting the customer), the increased frustration on the part of Squidward. They’re all a part of what contributes to the feeling in the episode (especially when you’re a kid) that SpongeBob and Squidward have been marching (and singing, with a thrown voice) for hours and with hours to go.
While the installment has plenty of hilarious moments (“It’s not just a boulder! It’s a rock!” SpongeBob exclaims when espousing how the pioneers would “ride [those] babies for miles”), the true heart comes in the deepening of Squidward’s relationship with SpongeBob, which is frequently one of resigned annoyance. However, when they finally arrive to deliver the pizza and the customer complains that they forgot his drink (which he never ordered), Squidward’s inherent goodness takes over. Observing the tear-strained SpongeBob waddling in dismay at their failure to please the customer, Squidward’s older brother-esque proclivity for defending SpongeBob (also present in the selfless acts he commits to in “Christmas Who?”) returns and he crashes the pizza into the customer’s face.
While Squidward is typically depicted in an antagonistic, joyless way, he does embrace the core theme of SpongeBob (celebrating friendship) on occasion because even the most hardened heart would be softened by SpongeBob’s inability to find the silver lining of a situation. While SpongeBob and Patrick were always friends with one another, SpongeBob and Squidward were more rarely unified, which is why it was as heartwarming to see them come together and care for one another — just as it is for J.D. and Dr. Cox on Scrubs or Shawn and Lassie on Psych. Optimistic and cynical characters finding a bond with one another remains an undefeated trope.
This dynamic is also the center relationship of season two’s “Dying for Pie,” in which Squidward believes SpongeBob ate the pie he purchased (which was actually made in a bomb factory — “They’re bombs”) and is persuaded by Mr. Krabs to make SpongeBob’s final day of life a special one by doing whatever he wants to do most. SpongeBob immediately turns into a James Caan-infatuated Buddy the Elf, unfurling his “friendship list” for Squidward, which includes the activity of introducing Squidward as his “best friend” to everyone in town. The episode culminates in a number of hilarious moments, as SpongeBob counts down a sunset (initially, we think, it’s to his own death) before cutting himself off with a tension-building, “I guess we started too early!”
Eventually, SpongeBob reveals that he was saving the bomb-pie to share with Squidward, who begins to angrily scream and stomp over the anguish SpongeBob unwittingly forced him to endure throughout the day (“Squidward, we already played babble like an idiot” Spongebob quips). However, it was heartening to see that Squidward’s frustration was derived, not from the fact that he “wasted” a day checking off SpongeBob’s friendship list, but from the fact that his day was spent thinking he had killed his friend. That’s right: friend.
Even in these brief moments when SpongeBob manages to further his relationship with Squidward, it never comes at the cost of the friendships in his life (like Patrick and Texan squirrel Sandy (Carolyn Lawrence)) that are never met with resistance and fury. After all, who shows off the theme of friendship better than the unflinchingly loyal Patrick Star?
As the show’s resident “dumb” character, Patrick was responsible for much of the series’ more stupid (in the best possible way) humor. He sets up plenty of puns (like when he tells SpongeBob to get “this thing off your chest,” before the animation reveals a purple blob sucking on SpongeBob’s torso), but also indulges in fun physical comedy (at the rehearsal in “Band Geeks,” he kicks Sandy, provoking a fight that results in an angry British fish roasting Mr. Krabs’ claws and Sandy slamming Patrick’s head into a trombone). (His faux-wisdom, regarding “ten” mattresses and the possibilities of “technology” and its mystique, is a delightful addition that drifts him beyond being straightforwardly stupid.)
He asks if mayonnaise is an instrument, he sees elephant balloons as giraffes, he mistakes claustrophobia for holiday fears. Patrick gets most of the laughs that kids experience during a SpongeBob episode, but if you just roll with the silly inanity of the series, he’s a character one can appreciate for all stages of life.
SpongeBob certainly never tires of the time he spends with his true best friend (though, his adoration for Sandy, Squidward, his pet snail, Gary (Tom Kenny), and the rest of Bikini Bottom’s community suggests that he subscribes to the Mindy Kaling theory of “best friend is a tier, not a title”). The varying ages ascribed to the characters (SpongeBob can act like an infant and like a middle-aged man, depending on the episode) result in them being enthralled by snowball fights, secrets, clam babies, and boxes of imaginaton, in equal measure. This wonder is also how Mr. Krabs manipulates the pair into painting his home white.
“Wet Painters,” from the third season of SpongeBob, is another hysterical installment in the series and it begins with clearly expressed stakes: Krabs’ walls are cluttered and the paint is permanent. It’s this clear delineation that SpongeBob and Patrick could suffer severe consequences if they dab paint onto any of Mr. Krabs’ wall art that makes their opening of a paint can just moments later so funny. Patrick repeatedly clamors at SpongeBob to be careful when opening the lid of the can, sighing in relief when the task is completed, only to whip out a massive sledgehammer and demolish his own paint can with an abrupt, “Now it’s my turn!” Physically, the joke is impactful as metal smashes metal, but it’s also humorously more impactful as we’ve just been explained the stakes of their painting task.
In spite of the action that could’ve ruined their painting job before it got started, SpongeBob doesn’t scream at Patrick or deride his intelligence. Instead, he cautiously approaches Patrick and offers to remove the lid himself. Even when Patrick pumps up two giant paint bubbles (eventually combining them after responding, “Nonsense!” to SpongeBob’s optimism that the bubbles can’t get any worse) and sends a drop onto Mr. Krabs’ first ever dollar earned, SpongeBob only thinks of the next right thing to do and never of belittling his best mate (who probably deserved a solid scolding, to be honest).
While occasional episodes would pit SpongeBob and Patrick against one another (“The Fry Cook Games” serves as one of the earliest examples of this), most slights committed by the best friends against one another are never intentionally mean. For example, when SpongeBob is left behind in Rock Bottom, Patrick calls out from the bus window passing by, “Hey, SpongeBob, the bus is here!” It wasn’t a malicious betrayal from Patrick, it was just a stupid, reckless action that left him unsure of how to get SpongeBob on the bus right alongside him. Culminating the installment in Patrick staying on the bus to head back to Rock Bottom and retrieve SpongeBob, it’s clear that the show’s creative team aimed to depict as pure a friendship as they possibly could between the pink starfish and the yellow sponge.
The season two episode, “Something Smells,” is the purest distillation of this occasionally (and unintentionally) callous dynamic between the two, as SpongeBob scarfs down onions, ketchup, and other foul-smelling foods for breakfast and begins to believe that his neighbors flee from his presence because he’s ugly, rather than because his breath reeks. It’s Patrick who harmlessly mentions the potential for SpongeBob’s ugliness, but never once presents a hint that he would similarly abandon his companionship for the sake of being around non-ugly people.
Patrick pities SpongeBob’s perceived ugliness (“You poor, ugly thing, you”) and attempts to find a bright side (He posits that SpongeBob “makes [others] feel better about the way they look!”), but he never derides SpongeBob. He wants him to be proud of his ugliness instead. (“I’m ugly and I’m proud!” SpongeBob shouts from his rooftop while a neighboring Squidward, attempting to tan on his roof, asks himself, “Is that what he calls it?”)
This boundless loyalty is returned right back when Patrick snacks on SpongeBob’s grotesque concoction and believes that he, too, “got the ugly” (punctuated by a Gus from Psych-esque scream by SpongeBob, even though Patrick’s appearance hasn’t changed at all). It’s an episode punctuated with myriad throwaway gags, but it’s also so inspiring to see two friends just looking out for the best in one another, even in the face of others’ pessimism and a world prone to complete, cartoonish nonsense.
It’s like Patrick said when inflating a paint bubble, after all: “Nonsense!” That’s the crown of the comedy on SpongeBob with plentiful jokes coming of absolutely nowhere (just like Patrick’s paint-opening sledgehammer). At the beginning of “Dying for Pies,” SpongeBob buffs the stains out of tables before turning the machine on himself, mixing his face up like a Picasso painting, and giggling his patented, staccato laugh. That’s the entire show right there. A messed up Picasso painting where anything is possible and nothing had to track logically with preordained concepts and unexplored depths of reality.
On SpongeBob, the French narrator’s (Kenny) perennial time cards (“A few hours later”) could be used for fourth wall breaks. A slab of marble could receive one tap to turn into a flawless, Michelangelio-style work of art. A fish could regurgitate an egg with the number 329 stamped upon its shell, signifying three more guppies instead to usurp SpongeBob’s position as the 329th person in line. (My personal favorite nonsense is always when a collision occurs and a random explosion is the result of it, like when flag twirlers spiral into a blimp and implode the entire aircraft. It just gets me every time.) There were never any rules or physics in Bikini Bottom, as thought bubble memories could interact with characters in real time and campfires could be held underwater. Using the best of its animated form (even to the tune of colors, as the Pretty Patties looked delicious, as a kid), SpongeBob disregarded all logic at all times and it was all the better for it.
The nonsense was also enhanced by moments with impeccably delivered line readings from the series’ talented array of vocal talent. So iconic and so on-the-nose, I wanted to include just a brief rundown of some of my favorite line deliveries from some of the episodes on which I took notes for the sake of this essay.
“Something Smells”
SpongeBob: “Excuse me, sir. I hope my horrible ugliness won’t be a distraction to you.”
Fish Patron (Dee Bradley Baker): “Not at all boy!”
“Dying for Pie”
SpongeBob: “You know, if I were to die right now in some sort of fiery explosion due to the carelessness of a friend, well, that would just be okay.”
SpongeBob: “This is great. Just the three of us. You, me, and this brick wall that you built between us.”
Mr. Krabs: “That’s where you left [the bomb].”
Squidward: “It’s not there!”
SpongeBob: “Hey guys! Thanks for the pie, Squidward. La, la, la, la, la, la.”
Mr. Krabs [to Squidward]: “You had to kill him. The boy cries you a sweater of tears. And you kill him.”
“Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm”
SpongeBob: “That’s not the worm. That’s his tongue!”
Sandy: “Ohhhhh. This is the tongue. And the whole thing is the… worm.”
“Club SpongeBob”
As SpongeBob’s clubhouse soars over the kelp forest.
Fish [to his wife]: “Make a wish, honey.”
Kelp Forest Ranger (Baker): “Magic. Conch. Shell? You mean like this?!”
“My Pretty Seahorse”
SpongeBob: “That’s not a monster, Mr. Krabs. It’s a horse. She’s my friend. Her name is Mystery!”
Mr. Krabs: “You’re a mystery, SpongeBob.”
“I Had an Accident”
As the characters sandboard.
SpongeBob: “Hey Sandy, watch me do ‘The Grouchy Squidward!’”
Squidward: “Stop naming moves after me!”
SpongeBob [impersonating Squidward]: “Everyone’s an idiot except for me.”
Squidward: “Well, it’s true.”
“No Weenies Allowed”
As SpongeBob and Sandy fight each other in karate.
SpongeBob: “Sandy?”
Sandy: “Oh, I’m Sandy alright. I’m very Sandy. Hi-yah!”
SpongeBob [soaring through the air]: “Oh, I get it. She’s Sandy. That’s her name and she’s also covered in… yes!”
It’s just incredible. If you’ve watched SpongeBob and had it imprinted upon your brain, then I’m sure you can hear each of these moments in your head. I sure can. The cadence, the rhythm, the inflection, the pauses. They’re all rattling around in my big, smooth egg brain, but if that means I get to retain SpongeBob quotes, then the smoother the better!
For an entire generation, SpongeBob has turned these inflections and deliveries into an influence on how we speak in our daily lives and what we find humorous. While SpongeBob churns out a new Internet meme seemingly once a week, it’s also true that the series was a meme before the Internet had even exploded into daily consciousness. Back in grade school, we’d all watch SpongeBob reruns on Nickelodeon and then arrive in the classroom the next day, quoting it endlessly. From the shrill exclamation of “Chocolate!” to the sing-songy plea to try a sandwich made of jellyfish jelly (one of many great songs, including those about striped sweaters, what friends do for each other, and whether a foreign grill can feel like home), the zany absurdism of SpongeBob and the sense that anything obscure can happen in any moment — good or bad — has defined a brand new era of comedy, television, and animation. One story about an “ugly barnacle” who was so ugly that “everyone died” has changed the world of humor for millions upon millions of children who are now old enough to be defining what’s funny on the television landscape.
It took me a long time to realize that this was the impact of SpongeBob. After all, I’d grown up watching it with my sister, not realizing the seminal legacy it was orchestrating for itself. This moment of understanding that SpongeBob had changed everything about television and my own perception of the world came when Phineas and Ferb debuted on Disney Channel. My father read me a description of the show (which I’ve never seen), proclaiming it to be a descendant of SpongeBob SquarePants’ acclaimed brand of humor.
At that moment, I realized that SpongeBob wasn’t just a favorite cartoon to watch when I came home from school; it was genuinely one of the best cartoons, one of the best comedies ever made. Many of the episodes (from a THX 1138-inspired futuristic void to a hibernating Sandy in her treedome) were funny just in terms of the idea behind them. However, SpongeBob always insisted on being funny every step of the way, never sacrificing entertainment for the sake of kids-oriented moments of education (the song about tying one’s shoes hardly gives any genuine tips for footwear learners). At the end of “Wet Painters,” when SpongeBob and Patrick are saved by Mr. Krabs’ ability to lick the paint clean from his first dollar, SpongeBob posits that Mr. Krabs’ threat was to insure that they’d be more careful while painting his home. Mr. Krabs laughs this off and replies, “I just like to mess with ya!” SpongeBob was a comedy above all else. Any moral lessons only came about from characters messing with one another.
Still though, characters would learn more about each other and more about themselves, as evidenced by one of the series’ most acclaimed, famous episodes, “Band Geeks.” In this episode, the doltish hijinks are underscored by a character arc from Squidward that is deeply resonant to those who don’t feel they’ve made something of themselves in life (another element that soars over kids’ heads like a clubhouse flung from Bikini Bottom).
“Band Geeks” begins with Squidward’s arrogant perception that he possesses “unrecognized talent” bristles against his desperate need to prove himself among his more accomplished contemporaries, namely his boyhood rival, Squilliam Fancyson (Baker), who mercilessly taunts Squidward. When he attempts to rally the residents of Bikini Bottom to his side in an effort to congeal into a marching band that would rival the best in the world, the conflicting personalities result in brawls and inane questions, rather than melodious, rousing marching band music. Squidward doubles down on his self-perception and labels himself a “loser” — for never succeeding as a professional clarinet player and for believing that his friends and neighbors were capable of more than just petty squabbles.
After an inspirational speech from SpongeBob (calling on his friends to think of Squidward as comparable to “some guy in an ambulance” who saved Larry the Lobster (Mr. Lawrence) in one unforeseen moment. When they arrive at the Bubble Bowl, motivated to do right by the general mediocrity of Bikini Bottom and represent their community in front of millions, Squidward expects nothing from them, only for chills-inducing orchestral music to kick in and another throwing of SpongeBob’s voice return to belt out the highly stirring lyrics to “Sweet Victory.”
As a kid, I couldn’t understand why I was almost moved to tears by this moment, but I mostly pinned it to the understanding that the song was engineering to be both uplifting and exhilarating and that it was performed in a fight song-esque fashion. Now, I see the transcendent moment in SpongeBob (and television) lore as rousing, but also as a sweet victory for Squidward to prove that he was capable of putting together a team for an unforgettable performance. It’s a testament to the ability of all of us (but especially those marine animals Hillenburg cherished so much in his life) to become legends. Even if only for a moment.
SpongeBob has been a show filled with legends for thousands of moments, but ones like the climax of “Band Geeks” are the ones we remember forever. Shaping our notions that stories can end with a Bubble Bowl halftime show featuring average fry cooks, cashiers, and unemployed rock dwellers from a village the crowd has never heard of. Or they can end with Nosferatu. So if nautical nonsense be something you wish, then all you need to do is drop on the deck and flop like a fish. On SpongeBob SquarePants, anything goes.
