SpongeBob SquarePants (seasons 1-6A, 8-present)

SpongeBob SquarePants (born July 14, 1986) is the titular main protagonist of the Nickelodeon animated series of the same name and Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years. He was designed by the former marine biologist, Stephen Hillenburg. Hillenburg based SpongeBob on Bob the Sponge, a character he had created for his educational book "The Intertidal Zone" in the late 1980s.

SpongeBob is a childish and joyful sea sponge who lives in a pineapple with his pet snail Gary in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom. He works as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab, a job which he is exceptionally skilled at and enjoys thoroughly. He attends Mrs. Puff's Boating School, and his greatest dream in life is to receive his boating license. Unfortunately, he tenses up whenever he has to drive a boatmobile, and he drives recklessly. SpongeBob is very good-natured and loves to hang out with his best friend Patrick. His teacher is Mrs. Puff and his boss is Mr. Krabs.

In The SpongeBob Musical, SpongeBob's exact species of sea sponge is identified: Aplysina fistularis, a yellow sea sponge who's commonly found in open waters.

SpongeBob or some other form of him appears or is mentioned in every episode of the series, beginning with the series' pilot episode "Help Wanted." He is voiced by Tom Kenny, who is married to Karen Plankton's voice actress, Jill Talley.

Why He's Always Ready

 * 1) He is one of the most iconic cartoon characters ever created like many other iconic cartoon characters, such as Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Super Mario, Bob the Builder, Pikachu from Pokémon, Hello Kitty, Popeye, Winnie the Pooh, Homer Simpson from The Simpsons, Sonic the Hedgehog, Thomas the Tank Engine and Tom and Jerry. He is also possibly one of the most famous fictional characters out there.
 * 2) He is a wonderfully optimistic, abnormal, mature, fun-loving, and hyperactive person with a happy-go-lucky personality.
 * 3) A lot like his best friend Patrick Star, he was responsible for creating such memetic material with some expressions he's made from the series to the 2004 movie and such memeable scenes his existence has made with many worldwide. And also had tons of timeless, hilarious scenes.
 * 4) *Speaking of which, SpongeBob can seem more intelligent than Patrick in spite of his naivete or his loony if jolly behavior mostly in the first two seasons.
 * 5) With that said, he is greatly animated.
 * 6) He has a cute character design like many characters drawn by the late creator Stephen Hillenburg.
 * 7) He is extremely determined and will often stop at nothing to accomplish a task.
 * 8) He is very kind. He is a good owner to Gary (most of the time), a good friend to Patrick, Sandy, and is nice to Squidward even though he isn't nice to him (a typical "Love Thy Neighbour" message).
 * 9) He is very hard-working, enthusiastically working at his seemingly awful, low-paying job.
 * 10) He comes up with good songs such as:
 * 11) "Who Am I?"
 * 12) "Sweet Victory"
 * 13) "Ripped Pants"
 * 14) "The C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E S-O-N-G Song"
 * 15) "F.U.N. Song"
 * 16) "Now That We're Men"
 * 17) "Goofy Goober Rock"
 * 18) He is always ready for everything and anything.
 * 19) His iconic laugh, to some people.
 * 20) As mentioned above, Tom Kenny voices him excellently and flawlessly in the first 3 seasons, as well as seasons 8-present, the 2nd and 3rd films, and the spin-offs.
 * 21) He is mostly positive-thinking.
 * 22) As his catchphrase goes, he is always ready for everything and anything.
 * 23) He is the titular protagonist of three incredible animated films that combines live-action, surreal humor, and compelling themes rolled up in an adventurous, emotional odyssey.
 * 24) He managed to recover from his flanderization from seasons 6 & 7, since season 8, where he managed to become a likable character again and thankfully managed to get his character back in shape.
 * 25) He has a lot of awesome powerups in Battle for Bikini Bottom and the remake of the game, examples inculde:
 * 26) Bubble Spin: Spins while waving his bubble wand. This can hit enemies and objects in any direction.
 * 27) Bubble Bash: Launches upwards with a bubble Viking helmet towards mid-air robots or tikis.
 * 28) Bubble Bounce: While airborne, grows bubble feet and slams on top of enemies or tikis underneath.
 * 29) Bubble Bowl: SpongeBob blows a bubble and throws it forward in the fashion of a bowling ball. The longer the player holds the button, the faster it will be. Unlocked after beating Robo-Sandy.
 * 30) Cruise Bubble: SpongeBob launches a controllable bubble torpedo that destroys any robot(s) or tiki(s) that come in contact with it, including stone tikis. Unlocked after beating Robo-Patrick.
 * 31) SpongeBall: The only power-up based move, SpongeBob transforms into a ball and can do nothing but roll around, but is much faster. Press the jump button to return to normal SpongeBob.
 * 32) Sneak: SpongeBob can sneak around by moving slowly, sneaking past the Sleepy-Time robot, Shhh Tikis, and crossing fragile platforms.
 * 33) In "Krabby Patty Creature Feature," he is the only citizen of Bikini Bottom not affected by the zombie outbreak. He manages to save all the citizens using chum.
 * 34) He's one of Nickelodeon's most iconic characters of all time.
 * 35) Likewise, he's been featured in lots (and we mean, lots) of other media, going as far as to become playable in the Switch games, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl and Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix.. This proves how popular he is.

Bad Qualities

 * He, along with Patrick, was hit hard with flanderization in season 6 and 7 as he became a very annoying & idiotic pest. However, like Patrick, he redeemed himself in the new seasons as he goes back to his original personality though he recovered from flanderization first in the 8th season while Patrick's in 9 depending on your view he was a good character in the first episodes of Season 6.
 * 1) He still does have some mean-spirited moments before Season 6 & 7 such as:
 * 2) In "To Love a Patty", he gruesomely murdered a bunch of scallops only because the scallops were trying to eat the Krabby Patty he loved despite the fact that he himself raised one in "Rock-A-Bye Bivalve" and the fact he has a pet scallop named Shelly in a few episodes, making this hypocritical.
 * 3) His high-pitched voice from the first movie to Season 7 is kind of annoying.
 * 4) In "Married to Money", despite not being bad as Mr. Krabs and Plankton, he comes across as bland and he, along with Patrick and Squidward, decorates the Krusty Krab for an unnecessary wedding.
 * 5) *Likewise, it varies whether he was in character or not in Season 5. Though he isn't as bad as he is in Seasons 6-7, an to a lesser extent, 8 (but at least in season 8 he was decent).
 * 6) Even before and after flanderization, he can be annoying sometimes:
 * 7) While iconic and funny, his laugh can sometimes come off as annoying to some.
 * 8) With this in mind, he can also do some disgusting stuff as well (primarily because of potty humor such as belches/etc).
 * 9) He's incredibly naive to a fault. For example, he thinks that Mr. Krabs is a generous, non-cheap, and big-hearted person when he's really the exact opposite of that.
 * 10) *While this can be played for laughs, he is somewhat dramatic to the people who are kind to him: for example, the mailfish.
 * 11) He can be a Butt-Monkey type character (a character that gets abused for no good reason).
 * 12) Like Tommy Pickles and Usagi Tsukino, he has a BAD habit of crying so much (although not as much in Seasons 6 & 7, and to a lesser extent, Season 8), this is an example.
 * 13) He mostly has his clumsy/accident-prone moments in the series.
 * 14) Given how mischievous he is, SpongeBob can be somewhat of a Bart Simpson wannabe at times.

Trivia

 * This is currently the fifth longest page on this wiki following behind the pages for the main page, The Machines from Bob the Builder, Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) and the character development page, as well as the third largest page for any character overall.
 * His show is widely considered to be one of the best and most popular cartoons out there.
 * As stated above, he was born on July 14, 1986 making him a Cancer.
 * He was designed by the late marine biologist and teacher, Stephen Hillenburg (rest in peace).
 * Hillenburg based SpongeBob on Bob the Sponge, a character he had created for his educational book "The Intertidal Zone" in the late 1980s.
 * In a theory based on SpongeBob and his friends representing "The 7 Deadly Sins", SpongeBob is considered to be the "Lust" as several examples were shown in many episodes that he loves his krabby patties.
 * According to Stephen Hillenburg, SpongeBob is "almost asexual," meaning he has no sexual desire, though he can fall in love.
 * On the topic of sexuality, Nickelodeon themselves have confirmed that SpongeBob is gay, as seen in this Twitter post they made on Pride Month.
 * In early episodes, such as "Help Wanted," "F.U.N.," and "Christmas Who?," he did a dance where his arms and legs were curly. He doesn't seem to do the dance anymore.
 * On occasion, to express shock, SpongeBob's pupil would shrink, and his eyes would turn into circles, with his irises briefly disappearing. Sometimes, this is reversed, as his pupils would disappear and his irises become shrunken.
 * He made a cameo as a costume in the Bubble Guppies episode "Trick or Treat Mr. Grumpfish."
 * In the episode "Mrs. Puff, You're Fired," it is revealed that SpongeBob has failed the driving test 1,258,056 times.
 * SpongeBob has been involved with putting characters in a jar on at least four occasions:
 * In "Nature Pants," Patrick unsuccessfully attempts to put him in a jar.
 * In "Jellyfish Hunter," No Name puts him in a jar.
 * In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy IV," he puts the shrunken Bikini Bottomites in a jar.
 * In "Picture Day," he puts himself in a jar.
 * SpongeBob's teeth were based on Stephen Hillenburg when he was a kid.
 * SpongeBob hates Barnacle Chips, as revealed in "Chocolate with Nuts."
 * SpongeBob has appeared on a few pictures on iCarly.com.
 * SpongeBob is a mascot of Nickelodeon and Nickelodeon Movies.
 * In "I Was a Teenage Gary," SpongeBob is left-handed, but in later episodes, he is ambidextrous, revealed in "The Splinter" and "You Don't Know Sponge."
 * SpongeBob is said to be right-handed, but in "Neptune's Spatula," he approves that he has two left hands.
 * Even though Mr. Krabs is the creator of the Krabby Patty, in "Are You Happy Now?," the narrator says that SpongeBob is the creator.
 * SpongeBob has appeared on a few pictures on iCarly.com.
 * SpongeBob's prototype name, "SpongeBoy," is referenced by Mr. Krabs in the episode "Squeaky Boots," with the quote "SpongeBoy, me Bob!"
 * SpongeBob's head has gotten bigger in each season and his waist has gotten wider. In some early season 2 episodes, such as "Big Pink Loser," he has a narrow waist.
 * Beginning in "My Pretty Seahorse" and heavily used in post-season 5 episodes, SpongeBob's nose usually droops down when he is sad, much like Squidward's nose is normally.
 * SpongeBob has about 40 holes.
 * Twelve front holes (five normally covered by his clothing)
 * Nine back holes
 * Five holes on his left
 * Five holes on his right
 * Five holes on top
 * His birthmark and 3 moles.
 * Four holes on the bottom
 * In "Help Wanted," he is shown with fewer holes.
 * In "Truth or Square," SpongeBob is revealed to have three moles and a birthmark on his back.
 * A cut origin story was originally planned for SpongeBob. It was meant to explain his square shape as SpongeBob began life as a natural yellow Sponge that cyclops harvested and cut into squares in a factory on land.[37]
 * During the talk screens in the DS version of Creature from the Krusty Krab, SpongeBob has green eyes instead of blue.
 * In "I Was a Teenage Gary," SpongeBob is left-handed, but in later episodes, he is ambidextrous, revealed in "The Splinter" and "You Don't Know Sponge."
 * In 2002, SpongeBob was ranked #9 in TV Guide's Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters list (which also included Angelica Pickles at #7 and Ren and Stimpy at #31). He was notably the most recently-created character to be featured on the list at the time of its publication.
 * SpongeBob is one of the only two characters who is playable in every installment of the Nicktoons Unite! video games (the other being Danny Fenton).
 * In The Patrick Star Show, despite being mainly focused on his best friend, he is absent in a lot of episodes and segments to the point where he barely appears.

Multiverse
An alternate SpongeBob exists in a world where Plankton was successful. Like his mainstream counterpart, he likes his career, likes promotions, and gets sad when he makes an error in somebody's order. The most significant difference is that he is made co-cashier by Plankton and is employed by him.

An alternate SpongeBob is mentioned in the "What if SpongeBob Was Gone?" shorts. Without SpongeBob, Gary throws a humongous party that ends in disaster, Patrick cannot hunt jellyfish properly, Sandy gets injured when playing karate, and the Krusty Krab ends up in ruins. All would say except Gary, that everything is better with SpongeBob.

Reception
Throughout the run of SpongeBob SquarePants, the title character has become very popular with both children and adults and has become Nickelodeon's unofficial mascot.

The character's popularity has spread from Nickelodeon's original demographic of two to eleven-year-olds, to teenagers and adults,[31] including college campuses and celebrities such as Sigourney Weaver and Bruce Willis. Salon.com indicates that the unadulterated innocence of SpongeBob is what makes the character so appealing. SpongeBob has also become popular with gay men, despite Stephen Hillenburg saying that none of the characters are homosexual. The character draws fans due to his flamboyant lifestyle and tolerant attitude.

The popularity of SpongeBob translated well into sales figures. In 2002, SpongeBob SquarePants dolls sold at a rate of 75,000 per week, which was faster than Tickle Me Elmo dolls were selling at the time. SpongeBob has gained popularity in Japan, specifically with Japanese women. Parent company Viacom purposefully targeted marketing at women in the country as a method of building the SpongeBob SquarePants brand. Skeptics initially doubted that SpongeBob could be popular in Japan as the character's design is very different from already popular designs.

However, not all reception for SpongeBob has been positive. AskMen's Top 10: Irritating '90s Cartoon Characters ranked SpongeBob at number four. The publication said that his well-meaning attitude is "extremely annoying." The character has also been involved in several controversies, including some about his sexual orientation.

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